


The Criminal and the Lawyer

by FandomBunny



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Criminal Steve, Lawyer Danny, Legal, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, OCD, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Slash, Prison, criminal minds - Freeform, leverage - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-04-20 17:43:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 42,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4796477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomBunny/pseuds/FandomBunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is a serial killer that has demons even he doesn't want t face. Danny is a lawyer that feels a weight on his shoulders heavier than the world. Will the obstacles in their ways push them towards better days or will it cause them to fall into a darkness they've never known?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Can't Suffer With You

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea from Tumblr. Those amazing little cinnamon rolls!
> 
> Oh, and this is my first fic of the fandom. Please leave all types of comments :)

“Please, please, please tell me that you were just dropped on your head as a baby and that you don’t have some desire to just give me an aneurysm,” Danny said, his arms moving a mile a minute as he walked into the visiting area of the prison.

“You look good today? Did you get the tie from your girl?”

“Nuh uh, no, nien! You do not, and I mean NOT, get to change the subject here, McGarrett.”

Much to Danny’s disliking, Steve grinned at the blonde as if he just said he could spring him from prison. They both knew that wasn’t possible after the string of murders the former SEAL had committed after transferring to the reserves, but they were lucky enough to get him off of death row.

“Four years and you still smile like that. How is it that you can still smile like that after beating up your cellmate?” Danny asked, waving one hand around as he sat in the metal seat across from the convict.

Steve stared at his lawyer as he sat down in the seat across from him and waited a moment before shrugging his shoulders. It was true that he had beat up his cellmate, but he wasn’t going to go into details. He hated going into the details when it involved his problem. OCD the doctors called it. It was severe enough to make him crazy or at least that’s what Danny had always called him. Danny was the only one that he allowed to call him crazy without trying to break his arm.

As the short blonde looked at his client, Danny’s expression softened and he rubbed a hand over his face.

“What am I gonna do with you, buddy, huh?” He asked softly, the fight leaving him as quickly as it had arrived when he received the call from the prison that morning. “You can’t go and beat the shit out of people when they call you crazy.”

“He didn’t call me crazy,” Steve muttered.

“I’m sorry?” 

“I said: “He didn’t call me crazy.”.”

A silence fell over the two men as Williams stared at the other and waited for him to elaborate.

“He…He disrespected the Navy,” Steve frowned deeply. He had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy shorty after he was tried and convicted, but the former SEAL still held them on a pedestal. They were his life for so long than even Danny didn’t bother to try and talk him out of his loyalty to the same men that had abandoned him when he obviously needed help.

“I’ll tell you what. Let me make a few calls, talk to some people and see if we can’t get you admitted into a hospital.”

“I’m not crazy, Danny.”

“I know, I know.” The lawyer said, smoothing back his hair with both hands, “but a hospital would be better for you.”

“I’m not going to a hospital.”

“Steven,” Danny said with an edge to his voice, “there isn’t even a guarantee that I can get you in to one. Stop acting like some army brat and let me take care of you.”

“Navy,” Steve sighed though he was never tired of correcting Danny when it came to which part of the military he served in. He knew that the blonde did it just to get on his nerves, but it felt nice to look forward to their banter if nothing else.

“Of course it was the Navy. They have a special brand of crazy that can’t be found anywhere else.”

“I thought that was Hawaii?”

Danny narrowed his eyes at Steve who using their argument from his last visit as fuel for the New Jersey fire.

“Hawaii is a pineapple infested hellhole,” the blonde said with conviction.

“That’s my homeland, Danny. Why are you so mean?”

“I’m not mean. What is mean is —“

Before Danny had a chance to rant anymore, a guard wrapped his knuckles on the bullet proof glass to let the men know that his time was up. Steve could see something in the other’s eyes, but he couldn’t place it. It was going to aggravate him until their next visit which meant that Steve was going to have to actually ask him to visit again after he got out of solitary.

“Hey,” Danny said, grabbing Steve’s hand for a moment and looking into Hazel eyes, “I’m gonna do what I can, alright? You won’t suffer in here if I can help it.”

Steve looked down at their touching hands and then back up into the ocean blue eyes before taking a deep breath and nodding his head. He believed Danny, trusted him more than he trusted a lot of people.

“Smuggle in a Hawaiian pizza when I get out of solitary,” he grinned, feeling Danny remove his hand from on top of his as he geared up for a full out complaint that he’d carry over for god knew how long.

“Hawaiian pizza? Hawaiian pizza is not pizza. It is blasphemy and you should be ashamed of yourself. You know what? Go to solitary, spend some much needed time alone and think about what you just asked me. Think about it long and hard you damn neanderthal!” Danny shouted as he turned and walked towards the door. He continued to rant and fume about pineapples on pizza even after the door closed behind him when he left.

With Steve alone for only a moment before the guards came to take him away, the dark haired man couldn’t help the fond smile on his face. As long as he had Danny then he didn’t feel like he was suffering. Not anymore.


	2. Hell Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not crazy,” he told himself, pacing back and forth with his eyes shut so tight that he saw bright dots of light behind his eyelids. There was too much filth, so much filth. The guard who continuously made the rounds was taunting him with the messy tray. He wanted to break it apart neatly and then shove each peace down his throat and watch him choke to death on the plastic.

Solitary was bad - worse than Steve had imagined it would be when he had thoughts of Danny riled up to fill his imagination. Seeing Danny was supposed to calm him down and it had, but his OCD was so much worse. He could see the filth in the confined room and he wanted to scratch himself clean. He wanted to take a toothbrush to every inch of the four by four cell.

Each day felt worse than the last. Each night brought on nightmares that he would have rather buried than think about ever again. He didn’t find solace, he couldn’t. The former SEAL didn’t even eat because the tray was clean and food was touching. Nothing was neat and orderly.

“I’m not crazy,” he told himself, pacing back and forth with his eyes shut so tight that he saw bright dots of light behind his eyelids. There was too much filth, so much filth. The guard who continuously made the rounds was taunting him with the messy tray. He wanted to break it apart neatly and then shove each peace down his throat and watch him choke to death on the plastic.

“I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy,” he chanted, his body slow and sluggish from lack of sleep and nutrients. He didn’t even work out. The last thing he wanted was for his hands to touch the floor. No, he kept his hands tucked under the arms of his orange jumpsuit and his prison shoes tight around his feet. He never removed his clothes. There was no point when he was even denied access to the showers.

The worst part of it all was when he had to use the bathroom. The bowl needed to be burned with a toxic combination of lye, bleach, and Dawn. If he was the one cleaning then he’d ask for enough C4 to blast China sky high just for good measure.

Each day felt like a whole period of Hell Week. It was unbearable, but when his week was up, Steve couldn’t escape the hell hole fast enough. He held his breath as he was cuffed and taken from the room, his eyes examining the guard’s hands before looking at his face with appreciation for the gloves he wore, the clean, sterile gloves. He only knew of one guard that was considerate enough to wear them.

“How about we get you a shower?” Chin said in his calm, neutral voice. Other than Danny, Chin seemed to be the only one who understood that he needed things to be clean. He needed everything neat and he definitely needed a shower.

With a stiff nod, Steve felt himself guided away from solitary and towards the general population. There were corners turned and inmates talking, but the dark haired convict kept his attention on Chin’s gloves. He rooted himself to the sterile gloves and he slowly began to breathe again.

“Take a shower and then you’ll get dressed in a clean uniform,” The guard told him as he undid the metal chains and took a step back for the other to undress and grab the freshly clean towel.

“Thanks, Chin,” Steve said in a low voice, not waisting a minute as he all but ripped away the filthy clothing and stepped into the shower stall. After turning on the water, he turned so that his side faced Chin instead of his back. There were too many times when other inmates and even a few guards had tried to get the best of him while he was showering. They never got far, but he ended up getting chewed out by Danny and then thrown into solitary for a few days shortly after.

“Don’t thank me,” Chin said, his voice still neutral and oddly comforting, “your lawyer called me on my cell and asked me to help you. I guess he figured that you were going to have a hard time in solitary.”

He stopped scratching the soap into his skin and looked over at the guard with a surprised look on his face. He didn’t usually have a lot of displays of emotion unless they involved Danny.

“He called you?”

“Yeah.”

“And asked you to help me?”

“That’s what I said.”

Steve was silent for a moment, the surprise leaving his face as he examined the other’s. After another moment, he turned back to his task of scratching away the week of filth and tried to pay very little attention to the hunger in his stomach. He was used to not eating for long periods of time, but that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t take a toll on him. 

He finished showering just at the three minute mark and stepped out the shower before drying himself off with the clean towel. His body was covered in red streaks from running his blunt nails across section of skin repeatedly, but he felt clean and that was one of the best feelings he could experience. He preferred the cleanliness over the hunger to the point that when his stomach growled loudly in the otherwise empty shower room, he ignored it as if it was just wind passing through an open window.

“You’re stomach is growling like a wild boar, brah,” Chin commented with a slight frown.

“Didn’t eat,” he mumbled, causing Chin to frown, “the guard had the food touching. I couldn’t deal with it.”

“That must have been Wo Fat,” the guard sighed, “he’s not exactly the friendliest guy you could meet.”

The rest of the time in the shower room was spent in silence as Steve wondered if Danny knew about the Wo Fat character. It would explain why the lawyer had called and asked for such a favor from Chin. As he contemplated whether or not the blonde was looking out for him more than any average lawyer, Steve completely ignored the fact that they had gone pass the cafeteria and straight toward the mostly empty visiting room.

His head snapped up as the familiar smell of pineapples and ham invaded his senses. Steve first gave a confused look, unaware of when he had gotten there much less when he got dressed and was chained back up.

“Danny?” He questioned, wondering if he had taken a fall at some point and was dreaming.

“What? Didn’t expect to see me after you asked for your abomination of a pizza?” The lawyer asked, spreading his arms wide at the box of pizza that sat in the middle of the table.

“You actually got me pizza? How?”

Crossing his arms in front of his chest, Danny watched as Chin removed the shackles from Steve. Being in prison seemed to make former SEALs stupid.

“Chin, please tell me that he doesn’t have brain damage. No, scratch that. Please tell me he doesn’t have anymore brain damage,” Danny said to the guard who simply chuckled silently as Steve slowly moved to the seat across from the blonde.

“He’s good as far as I know, Danny.”

The lawyer eyed Chin for a moment before giving a nod and looking at Steve who was opening the box of pizza that sat in front of him. He all but hovered over his cousin Saul to make sure it was what Steve would have deemed as edible. Even his severe OCD couldn’t get in the way of him eating the damn thing.

“How did you manage to make it so…”

“Neat?” Danny supplied with a small smile, “I know people.”

Grabbing a perfect eight of a slice, Steve took a bite from it and moaned, his eyes doing a little roll that caused the blonde’s mouth to dry a little. 

“Thanks Danny,” the criminal said before taking another bite out of the slice.

“Yeah, well I did something for you…Now I need you to listen to me,” Danny said seriously, resting his elbows on the metal table and staring at the slightly taller male.

Swallowing the piece of food in his mouth, Steve frowned. He had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.


	3. A Helping Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny calls in for help, but he's not sure if it's only for Steve or for himself too.

Danny stood from the seat in the visiting area, his blue eyes staring at his client who looked so defeated. He wanted to tell him that it wasn’t as bad as he thought it was, that they were going to get through it and that Steve would be happier in the end, but he knew the other wouldn’t listen.

“I’ll be back tomorrow, alright? And I won’t be here as your lawyer, buddy. Just friends and no talk about what we’re gonna do, alright?” He told Steve, hoping that the other would acknowledge him as he picked up the empty pizza box and tucked it under his shoulder.

“I’m not crazy,” Steve mumbled softly, his voice sounding both hurt and determined. He didn’t want to be moved to a mental hospital for the criminally insane, but Danny had told him it was what was best. They could work with him and he wouldn’t have to deal with his severe OCD in the confines of the dark, filthy prison alone.

“I know you aren’t, Steve. You just have a problem and need some help getting better. There’s nothing wrong with that, you hear me? If some fucker in there tries to tell you differently then I’ll find out and go Jersey in there like you’ve never seen,” the blonde said with seriousness though his face held the hints of a grin.

With a sigh, Steve rubbed at his scruffy beard and looked up at Danny before giving him a nod. He had to trust that his lawyer knew what he was doing, he knew that he needed help, had begged for it from the very people that had arrested him.

Danny gave Steve a smile, seeing those wheels in his head turning, remembering before he glanced over at Chin and gave him a nod. With that, he left the visiting area silently and waited until he was out of the prison before pulling out his phone.

“Danno?” The little voice over the phone had answered after he dialed his ex wife’s number.

“Hey monkey! How are ya?” He said, his voice light and cheerful though he felt a weight sitting on his shoulders.

He listened to his little girl talk and talk for what seemed like forever as he made his way further into the parking lot to get to his car. It wasn’t until his little girl took a moment to suck in air for another long winded story that Danny was able to get a few words in and ask to speak to her mother. There was a groan from the child and then silence before his ex wife’s voice came through the line.

“Hello Daniel.”

“Rachel, you sound healthy,” he said, unlocking the car door and slipping inside.

“I am.”

Danny had to literally bite his tongue to keep from saying something smart that would only end up with them arguing. He was used to, had lived with it for three of the seven years of their long dead marriage, but it didn’t mean that he missed it. In fact, he was so grateful that they hardly argued that he actually thought about inviting her out for coffee just so that they could talk like civilized creatures. Only problem was the last time they orbited around each other clothes went flying and his dick just happened to lodge itself right into her.

Volatile…Very, very volatile. He thought to himself as he cleared his throat and tried the breathing exercises his doctor taught him to keep a handle on his high blood pressure. Apparently it was all about keeping calm. Wasn’t that a laugh when talking about Danny fucking Williams?

“Daniel?” Rachel questioned after a moment of not hearing anything fro her ex-husband. She had already checked the phone and he hadn’t hung up so he seemed distracted by something.

“You know my client, right? The one with OCD?”

“You mean former Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett?” She asked, knowing the serial killer’s name and rank as if she was the one who typed it up, handed it off, and put a damn bow on the papers herself.

“Yes, Steve McGarrett,” Danny said before going silent for a moment, “I need to get him evaluated. His OCD doesn’t seem to be getting better.”

“He’s in a prison, Daniel. They aren’t very equipped with dealing with people with problems such as his.”

Again, he bit his tongue to keep from saying something smart or even snapping at the British woman he had somehow managed to deal with for seven years. He couldn’t remember he being so damn condescending when they were together.

“You’re weaving in and out of the conversation, Daniel. Is everything alright?” Rachel asked, sounding genuinely concerned about the other.

“I’m fine, I’m good. Never better outside of the fact that Steve shouldn’t have been put in the prison. His last lawyer should have ordered a goddamn psych eval for the guy, but did he? Of course not!” The blonde exploded, keeping the phone between his ear and shoulder as he jammed his key in the ignition and started the car. He had already discarded the pizza box to the passenger’s seat.

“Have you spoken to a judge?”

“Not yet. I’ve spent the past week looking over the files and evidence that they had. I fucking wish that they called me in from the start and not just before he went in to make a plea.”

“But you got them to take the death penalty off the table, Danny. That was a good start.”

“He doesn’t belong in there, Rach. He needs to be around doctors and have access to people who can help him.”

Rachel went silent on her end of the line. She knew how big of a heart Danny had and it was the reason she had fallen in love with him so many years ago. However, it was also his downfall. She could hear him trying to keep himself together and it all but broke her heart. Steve had admitted to killing and he had reached out for help because he couldn’t stop himself. Now, there Danny was trying to help him more than the legal system had.

“I’ll do the psych eval and then go with you to see a judge,” she finally said only to hear a sigh of relieve fill the other end of the call. With a smile on her face, she leaned against the granite counter top and spoke to the New Jersey native for a little while longer. His voice calming her own nerves over what was happening with her lawyer of an ex and his troubled client.


	4. And yet...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A mess is unavoidable, Steve,” she told him, grabbing a flower pot and tossing it down to create an even bigger mess, “you can clean this up, but what you were scrubbing was clean already. There was nothing there!”

After Danny left him and Chin alone in the visiting area, Steve rested his elbows on the table i front of him before pushing his hands through his dark hair. He had agreed to go to the psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane, but he didn’t think he was crazy. He knew he wasn’t crazy. And yet…

_Dec 8, 2006_

_Steve scrubbed at the floors of his friend’s apartment, his glasses broken and forgotten in a trash bag as he stared at every speck of dirt on the hardwood floors. He didn’t like dirt, couldn’t handle it. The Navy was strict about keeping things clean and it stuck with him. Everything had to be clean and in place. Everything had a place except dirt._

_“Steve, you need to calm down. You’ve been scrubbing the floor for hours,” Catherine told her, her voice as tired as the rest of her. She had fought with him for too long about the way he had to have things organized and clean. That night it had been taken to a whole new level and she threw something at him. It had hit his face, causing his glasses to fall and break before he grabbed a bucket and tooth brush and began to scrub away._

_“I need to clean, Cath. You don’t understand,” he tried desperately to explain to her, his own voice sounding tired and hoarse from repeating himself over and over again._

_There was a silence in the living room of the apartment as Catherine watched Steve scrub the already clean floors. He had gone crazy as far as she was concerned. He needed help, but she knew from experience that he wouldn’t take it. He was stubborn just like have the others in the Navy. She was just as guilty of being stubborn too._

_With a shake of her head, she decided to try her own method of snapping him out of his clean freak persona. She grabbed a vase and slammed it on the floor. As it crashed into hundreds, if not thousands of pieces, Steve’s head snapped up and he stared at his friend with such disbelieve in his eyes that it seemed unfathomable that he ever killed someone in his life._

_“A mess is unavoidable, Steve,” she told him, grabbing a flower pot and tossing it down to create an even bigger mess, “you can clean this up, but what you were scrubbing was clean already. There was nothing there!”_

_Steve knew that she was talking, could hear that words that were passing through her lips, but all he could see was a mess. The dirt and the lack of organization was driving him mad. His skin began to crawl while his chest constricted. It was as if the walls were closing in on him and every inch was filled with some type of unclean substance. She knew how he was, he trusted her to not hurt him and yet that was exactly what she had done._

_Anger, fear, and something undefinable coursed through the SEALs blood stream at a mile a minute. He was acting on autopilot when he wrapped his fingers around a broken shard of glass and charged at her, his face blank as she continued to sprout nonsense about things being too clean._

_It wasn’t until her own face turned to that of shock and hurt, that Steve registered the blood pouring onto his hands. He had thought it was his own, but it was quickly a different case. His own shock ran through his body and he jerked back, taking the shard of glass with him and watching her grab at the wound before falling to her knees._

_“Cath…?” He asked, his voice wavering and scared as he set the glass down. He rushed over to her and laid her on the floor before pressing his hands against the wound to try and keep it from bleeding. “Don’t die. You can’t die, Cath,” he whispered to her._

_“You’re crazy…I-“ her words unfinished as she bled out so much quicker than he thought she would._

_He sat with her, coaxing the dead to talk and getting no where, for what felt like hours. It was only a few minutes as he got up and began to clean again. He had to clean again. He wasn’t crazy he just liked things to be clean and organized. Taking the bucket, he poured at the water and refilled it with water and bleach before he went back into the living room and cleaned everything. It took him hours to clean every inch of the apartment and change Catherine’s body into clean clothes. She felt cold, but she didn’t have to look dirty. There was no place for dirt. He wasn’t crazy, but there was no place for dirt. It was a known fact._

Shaking himself from the memory, Steve stood from the chair and walked over to Chin. He wanted to thank him for not being like the other guards, for wearing those damn gloves even though he had no problem with Danny being gloveless. He wasn’t sure why that was, but he didn’t dwell on it. He feared that if he did than he’d start thinking about what germs Danny had on him and then he wouldn’t want to be anywhere near his lawyer.

“You know, I think that Danny has the right idea about you going to a hospital. You’ll be comfortable there and not have to deal with Wo Fat,” Chin said in his always calm voice, trying to make Steve feel better about his decision as he shackled the inmate.

“I’m not crazy,” Steve recited for what sounded like the umpteenth time.

“I’m not saying that you are,” the guard said, looking the other in the eye, “what I’m saying is that the hospital is better situated to handle what you need. The cleanliness, people to talk to, medication to help take the edge off your severe OCD…you might even be able to see Danny a little more often.” He added, using Steve’s interest in the lawyer against him.

“He’s my lawyer, Chin. I’m not dumb enough to think he’ll visit me in a psychiatric hospital.”

The guard stared as Steve for a moment before shaking his head and taking the other back to his cell instead of solitary. The inmate didn’t question the look though he was curious about it. Did Chin know something that Steve didn’t? Was he so absorbed in saying how crazy he wasn’t, that he missed something from Danny that Chin had caught on to?

While Steve allowed himself to stew in questions that only his mind was producing, Chin walked him back to his cell before removing the shackles and closing the cell door. It wouldn’t lock until later on in the day, but they all knew that Steve preferred his privacy and they were willing to give it to him if it meant not having half the guards hold him back nor having to deal with the wrath of lawyer Daniel Williams.

“Tell me about Wo Fat,” the inmate said so suddenly that he surprised himself despite the look on his face as he expected some type of answer from Chin.

The guard lifted his brows for a moment and crossed his arms in front of his chest before shrugging a shoulder. He didn’t know much about the guy. Actually, no one really knew too much about him. He kept to himself though he did seem to get a kick out of torching Steve more than humanly suggested.

“He was sent in by Judge Jameson,” Chin started, “he got the job not too long after you landed in here.”

“That was four years ago,” Steve commented with a frown.

“Yeah, Warden Noshimuri switched him out with another guy. You remember Duke? Well, he stays in the watch tower while Wo Fat deals with solitary,” the guard informed the other, a frown on his face showing just how the information made him feel. It didn’t matter to him that he was speaking about it with Steve who was a convicted serial killer. He wholeheartedly believed that the guy didn’t belong there. Not with how messed up in the head the Navy had made him.

“You think think that somethings up, don’t you?” Steve asked, resting his elbows on his knees once he sat on the cot.

“Yeah, I do, but now isn’t exactly he right time to talk about it, is it?” Chin asked as he gave the inmate a knowing look.

Steve couldn’t help the half smile that formed on his lips as he shook his head slightly at the other. He told Chin to go do what he did best and watched the Hawaiian native leave him alone after a moment so that he could think over what was happening or rather what was going to happen. Chin seemed to think that something was going on so Steve couldn’t help himself from wanting to get to the bottom of it. It was in his blood to help people even if he had killed people. He regretted those who didn’t really deserve to die, what was left of the rational part of his brain had told him that his victims were innocent even when his OCD said otherwise.

Placing his head in his hands, he used the heels of his palms to rub at his eyes as he switched from thinking about Chin and Wo Fat to Danny. He kept his thoughts on the lawyer who never mentioned a dime though he was sure the blonde got paid. It might not have been a boat load, but there was no way in hell a lawyer like Danny wasn’t getting work from other clients. He had to have been in order to support his ridiculous addiction to ties. In the four years that they had known each other, Steve thinks that he had only seen Danny where a tie more than once on a handful of occasions. Usually it was if he had to visit the prison in back to back days over Steve’s condition. Yeah, they had doctors that were possibly qualified to take care of him when he got too antsy, but he was never allowed to the infirmary.

I was never allowed… Steve’s head shot up and he stared at the blank cement wall in front of him for a long moment. Chin was right. Something was definitely wrong at the prison if Steve had never been allowed to the infirmary. His OCD mixed with his SEAL training had made him stir crazy and antsy on multiple occasions in the last four years. There had been times that he was so bad he would be put in solitary or snuck out to the yard by Chin late at night to cool himself down. Things had to be neat and organized. If everything was organized then he had to go back and reorganize until he was calm. The times Danny was called in to visit him were all thanks to Chin since none of the other authority would have called for anyone to help the inmate.

Steve blinked a few times before pinching the bridge of his nose. He felt like an idiot for not having seen it sooner. The prison was working by a different set of rules than they were supposed to. His first thought was corruption and from there the web of information he had stored in his brain seeped into webs of connections, but nothing solid. There wasn’t enough information and he didn’t have any evidence to support his argument. He was sure that if he even tried taking it to Danny, the blonde lawyer would just look at him as if he was truly ready for the nut house and strait jacket while labeling him as a conspiracy theorist.

No, Steve was just going to leave well enough alone. It angered him to think that he wasn’t going to do anything, but he couldn’t until he had something more to go on. If he tried anything at that point then there was a big possibility he’d end up losing his mind or possibly Danny.


	5. Visiting Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m abusing my position as a lawyer,” the blonde realized with a groan. He was a professional for crying out loud! Abusing positions and what not were not part of who he was. Danny would have argued with himself to extreme lengths if it wasn’t for the fact that it wouldn’t be productive and he was in the middle of driving into the prison’s parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here lies chapter 5! It is unbeta'd and I admit to knowing close to nothing about the layout of prisons or most anything to do with them.

Danny leaned against the door frame and watched as Grace organized and reorganized her room. He was used to the routine, used to having to wake up two hours earlier than need be to accommodate his daughter and her routines. She had to fix her bed four times, rearrange her dolls twice, close the door eight times, and then tap the golden knob four times before she even thought about going to the bathroom. He watched her do it every time she spent the night at his place and assured her that it was alright that she did it. He understood that she couldn't help herself even though the medicine helped a little bit. 

"You're going to visit your friend in prison today, right?" She asked her father as they walked down the short hallway towards the bathroom. Danny had already used the bathroom, but hadn't gotten dressed yet. It made Grace feel a little less guilty of her condition when she got dressed before her father. 

"Yeah, I want to make sure he's doing alright. He has the same condition as you, but doesn't have all the help that you do," he explained to her. 

Grace's steps fault reed and she whirled around to gape at her father. Danny would have laughed at her pigtails whipping her in the face briefly if not for the fact she seemed to have a lot to say. He could practically feel the gears turning in her head as she wound up for a conversation. 

"He shouldn't be in prison if he goes through what I go through. That's not fair to him!"

"Gracie--"

"It's hard to get through the day, Danno, but I have you and mom and StepStan. Your friend hardly even has you! That’s not fair and you know it. I bet he’s lonely. He probably doesn’t even take his medicine.”

"He's killed people, Gracie," The blonde said, wanting her to understand that Steve wasn't in prison just because of his OCD. 

"Did he do it on purpose? Did he mean to kill people? I want to meet him," she said, her voice going eighty miles an hour before she came to her own conclusion. If had Danny baffled and a tiny bit proud of his monkey, but as he stood there with a look of shock Grace went to the bathroom and left him be. 

He stood there for a mouth, his mind only half paying attention to how to the door only closed once though he heard the lock click six times.

*****

Danny dropped an annoyed Gracie off at school before he called Rachel and let her know that they had talked about Steve and that Grace wanted to meet him. The conversation that followed between the little girl's parents was a little less than pleasant and ended with Rachel griping about letting Danny take her during a school night since he had to go out of town on Friday to help a friend move. 

With the clock on the dash reading half past nine, the blonde lawyer drummed his fingers on the steering wheeled he made his way to the prison. He was going there as a friend to just sit and shoot the breeze for however long he could. The longer he actually thought about going to the prison without it being a job, the more Danny realized that he had been going there without thinking of it as a job for quite a while before then. Sure, he was Steve’s lawyer and he talked to him about legal actions and getting into a psychiatric hospital, but he hadn’t charged Steve for any of his visits. Not even the ones where he had to go there after having a rough night and tired morning. He went to the prison more often to keep Steve company and let him know what they could do than to try and drag everything out just for the sake of a paycheck.

“I’m abusing my position as a lawyer,” the blonde realized with a groan. He was a professional for crying out loud! Abusing positions and what not were not part of who he was. Danny would have argued with himself to extreme lengths if it wasn’t for the fact that it wouldn’t be productive and he was in the middle of driving into the prison’s parking lot.

After parking and smoothing his hair back out of what he wouldn’t admit as possible nervousness, Danny left his car before walking into the dreary grey building. He even made sure to lock it since he didn’t trust any of the guards except Chin. Just because the guy had gotten disbarred and took up a job as a guard instead of fighting for the truth didn’t mean that he had something to hide. It also didn’t mean that he wasn’t allowed to have Danny’s trust and that was without thinking about the gloves the guard wears around Steve.

“If it isn’t the haole. How are ya?” Kaleo asked with a shit eating smirk, knowing how much that word annoyed the hell out of Danny. Yeah, he had gotten used to it. Yeah, his sometimes partner at the law firm had called him it numerous times. Hell, he heard it every damn time someone saw him wearing a damn vest and tie. Apparently Hawaiians didn’t understand what professional really was.

“I’m fine, Kaleo, just came by to see my client.”

“You’ve been seeing him an awful lot, huh? Trying to get those conjugal visits?”

The fiery Jersey blonde scowled and pointed a finger at Kaleo’s chest. He wanted to beat the shit out of the guy, he could have easily beat the shit out of the guy, but he settled for using words like a respectable human.

“I’m real sick of your shit. I am a professional whereas you are some second rate scum that was hired by a judge which, in all honesty, I don’t fucking understand how that was even done. So do your job and buzz me through,” Danny said, his accent coming out slightly thicker than it had been in the past few months.

The two men stared at each other with narrowed eyes before Kaleo leaned over and pressed the buzzer to allow Danny through the first gate. The blonde had to fight back a triumphant smirk as he strode through the metal detector before going to the next door. Once that one was buzzed open, Danny was greeted by the guard he could only assume as Wo Fat. 

Right off the bat, the blonde hated the guy. He looked as if he actually ran the place and everyone else was just a pawn to him. With weary eyes, Danny watched the smug look on Wo Fat’s angular face and walked with him to the visiting area that was for lawyers to discuss things with their clients.

“Are all your professional clothes at the cleaners?” Wo Fat asked, his voice sounding as if he was trying for casual talk, but hitting sarcasm.

“Something like that,” was Danny’s only answer as he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and stared ahead. It was out of character for the blonde to not be loud and windmill his arms, but he didn’t want to give Wo Fat the satisfaction of riling him up.

They were silent again for a long moment before the reached the visiting area and he was left to enter just as Chin was bringing Steve in. There was a mumble from Wo Fat, but nothing that Danny couldn’t easily ignore as he walked into the room and held his arms out wide by his sides.

“What’d I tell ya? I told you I’d be back today didn’t I?” He said with a grin as he walked over to the dark haired man in the prison outfit. 

Steve had a confused look on his face as he looked his lawyer up and down, but there was an appreciative look in his eyes as well. The inmate hadn’t expected Danny to show up in jeans and a tee much less sneakers instead of his signature loafers. It seemed like the blonde had meant it when he said he’d be there as a friend and not a lawyer despite the room they were in.

“I didn’t doubt you,” Steve said, watching Danny’s open armed gesture and wondering if the other was expecting a hug. He heard Chin snort and had to refrain from turning to glare at the guard who was quickly leaving the room.

“Am I gonna get a hug or is that too much? I’m not a statue, you know.”

“You want a hug?”

“Friends hug.”

Steve was silent for a long moment and then took two steps to close the distant between them. He didn’t think about germs or dirt as he hugged the smaller male for a moment. Instead, he reveled in the human contact, his eyes closing as he inhaled the clean scent and memorized the compact body that belonged to Danny.

When they broke apart a moment later, they sat down on opposite sides of the table and looked at each other without speaking. Danny, of course, was the one to break the silence first.

“So my monkey told me that it wasn’t fair that you’re in prison. She’s all of twelve years old and she was scolding me about you being in here without a support system,” he explained, his hands moving as they always did. Steve noticed that when the other said ‘monkey’ his eyes would crinkle in the corner as he smiled.

“Do you mean an actual monkey or a person?”

“The army seriously made you stupid, huh?” The blonde asked, “Monkey is my nickname for my daughter, Grace.”

“I was in the Navy,” Steve mumbled before hearing that his lawyer had a daughter. His ears perked up and he looked at Danny with more interest, “you talk to your daughter about me?”

Danny shrugged his shoulder at the question and moved slightly to grab his wallet so he could show Steve a picture of his little girl. Before the picture was fully out for the other to view, the Jersey native was talking a mile a minute about how Grace was the smartest little girl he ever knew and how she had OCD, but was taking medication for it. He talked and talked, his eyes crinkling and his smile wide as he spoke to Steve about his little girl. It was as if some imaginary flood gates had opened.

Sure, the blonde talked a lot during his visits, but he was usually yelling or trying to talk to Steve about going to a hospital instead of staying in the prison. The former seal had never seen the blonde smile so much or talk about his personal life at such length before. It was refreshing and Steve found himself enjoying the Jersey accent that belonged to Danny Williams more than anything.

“Criminally insane hospitals tend to house crazy people,” Steve suddenly said, causing Danny to halt the conversation about how Grace used to get so nervous about Danny being dressed before her in the mornings, “I’m talking psychopaths and sociopaths. How do you plan on getting me in when I’m neither?”

A whole different smile took hold of Danny’s face at that point and he leaned forward without putting his hands on the metal table. If he left hand prints, Steve would start freaking out and wanting to clean.

“My ex, Rachel will do a psych eval on you to determine how severe your OCD is. I did some reading up last night and during the week when you were in solitary,” he said, watching Steve flinch slightly, “it was written in the police reports that you begged for help or at least tried to though I could only imagine how difficult it was when you cleaned the way you did. Anyway, they got a confession out of you when you weren’t in a more stable mind.”

“Wait, you aren’t trying to get me into a hospital for the criminally insane?” Steve asked, remembering that Danny had been trying to talk him into it for the longest time.

“Since you plead guilty and we took the plea bargain our only shot is to win the appeal. The reason I was talking about the hospital for the criminally insane is because when you finally agreed to it, it would be a hell of a lot easier to get you to agree to being in an inpatient mental facility,” Danny explained with a triumphant smirk, feeling like he just won a chess tournament.

At that moment Steve couldn’t help himself from thinking that Danny deserved a damn medal for the brains he had. The inmate was a former SEAL. He was trained in learning everything he could to outmatch people, but even he hadn’t seen the lawyer’s game plan- his actual game plan.

“Alright,” Steve said slowly with a nod of his head, “but before we think about doing an appeal I need your help with something.”

“Seriously?” Danny asked with an expression that was both a frown and confusion.

“I need evidence to take down a judge and a warden.”

Danny didn’t even have to hear anymore before he nodded his head in agreement. He already knew who the other was talking about and hearing from Steve that they needed to be taken down was all he needed to know.


	6. Danny's Monkey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s with the constipated look, huh? My daughter wants to shake your hand and even put sanitizer on first which means that she obviously wants to shake your hand. Stop being a neanderthal before you hurt my monkey’s feelings,” Danny ranted which caused the inmate to close the distance and shake the little girl's hand.

“I have officially reached crazyville. There is no way in hell that I agreed to Steve that easily. I should not have agreed to the guy so easily even though I can feel it in my bones that something is wrong with Judge Jameson and the Warden-What’s-His-Face,” Danny said as he paced back in forth in front of the couch at Chin’s place. He had visited Steve earlier that day and told him what his real plan was and they talked about Grace, but before he left they talked about taking down big people. Powerful people. He had Grace to think about and yet he was going on some type of suicide mission.

“I’ll admit that I’m surprised you agreed so quickly when you enjoy arguing with the guy like a married couple,” Chin said with a slight shrug from is spot on the couch. He had gotten off work early that night when Danny had called and asked that they meet up. He had a feeling that it was about his visit to the prison early that afternoon, but he wasn’t really sure what to expect.

“I wasn’t thinking of an argument. I was focused on keeping Steve safe.”

“And Grace,” Chin commented, causing Danny to stop mid-step and swivel around to look at him with a flabbergasted expression. The guard could have sworn that he saw the very expression when he heard about Hawaiian pizza.

“What’s the matter with you? Why would say that? How can you say that?”

Giving the other a knowing look, the dark haired man leaned forward slightly and rested his elbows on his knees. He let the silence consume the room as Danny’s questions stirred and twirled in the emptiness. Sure, the blonde wanted answers and stared at him expectantly, but Chin outlasted him and watched as his friend turned back around and pushed his free hand through his slicked back hair while the other tipped the rim of his beer to his lips.

“Think about it, Danny,” Chin started, “Steve has OCD. His condition is so severe that he actually killed not one, but six people. He sought out help in the only way that his mind would allow him and he almost ended up dead. Instead, he admitted to all of his guilt before legal council even blinked an eye and when you finally swooped in all you were able to do was get the death penally taken off the table”

“How does any of that have to do with my daughter?”

“Because there is always the possibility that something can happen and her OCD will get as bad as Steve’s. I’m not saying that it’s a definite, but if it does than you would want to know that the legal system is working the way it was meant to instead of being manipulated by people like Jameson and later, Noshimuri.”

Danny stood still for a moment with back facing Chin and the beer close to his mouth. He didn’t want to admit, but his friend had a point. In fact, it was a very good point and it made the blonde want to punch something because he was not too keen on admitting such things. 

After about a minute, Danny took another swig of his beer before turning and setting the bottle down on the coffee table. His mind was running a thousand miles a minute much like his motor skills usually did.

“Alright,” he said once he straightened back up and put his hands in his pockets, "how do you think we should do this? I have a few plans, but if rather stay out of prison."

"Steve's dad was a mainlander. When he was mentoring me he said that there was this guy he grew up near that turned to the dark side. We could ask him for help."

Danny was considerate enough to put on a contemplating expression as he rocked on the balls of his feet for a moment. He knew who Chin was talking about. He used to box with one of the guys in the man's crew, but they hadn't talked for years. He liked to be a white hat kind of guy, but he had to be open to the idea that it wouldn't be easy to take down Jameson.

"Give me a little while to think on that. I have to convince Rachel to let Grace visit Steve first."

Chin stared at Danny for a moment before leaning back against the couch. He wasn't about to judge the blonde when the guy had been nothing but a friend even after he found out about his disbarment.

"Just remember, Danny, the two of us can't take either of them down by ourselves. They have more power than we do," the guard said. 

****  
Two weeks. Two annoying, vicious, brutally antagonizing weeks since Steve was last able to clean his cell. He could see and feel the dirt all around him. The one thing that kept him sane was the four pattern tapping he did against his temple as he paced back and forth in the small space. It wasn't enough to though. He had reached his last straw when he saw Wo Fat's face. The guard acted as if he was large and in charge which pissed the inmate off so badly that he wanted to knockout the other quicker than Ever Beleño did Guillermo Salcedo in '94. 

"That lawyer of yours seems to have had to deal with a 'bring your daughter to work' day," Wo Fat told Steve, his voice that same annoying calm tone that made the former SEAL wonder if he was being taunted. He would have been more pisses if it wasn't for the fact that Danny had actually brought Gracie to visit him. He suddenly felt self conscious about himself, but he couldn’t hide away. It wasn’t who he was and it wasn’t something that the Navy would have tolerated.

“Let’s go,” were the next words that the guard sad as he opened the cell door and held up the shackles that, admittedly, looked a little blood rusted. With every ounce of his strength to not go bat shit crazy, the dark haired male stepped up and gritted his teeth as he allowed the rusted cuffs to be placed on his wrists.

You can’t kill him. Killing him would be bad. Danny will get pissed beyond believe and that is not an argument that I think my ears will survive. Steve thought to himself as he took deep, harsh breaths through his nose as he was lead to the usual visiting area.

When they reached it, Steve was all too thankful when the cuffs were removed and he was all but shoved into the confined room where Danny and a tiny brunette of a girl were talking. They seemed to be in a deep conversation about something, but Steve wasn’t exactly sure what it was since they seemed to shut up as the inmate got closer to the table.

“You must be Gracie,” the dark haired man said with a smile as he rubbed his wrists, “you’re dad’s told me a lot about you.”

The little girl beamed up at Steve and used hand sanitizer before she held out a hand for the other to shake. The inmate stared at Grace’s hand and then shifted his gaze to Danny as if silently asking him if it was okay to shake his daughter’s hand. Just because he knew about her and was able to meet here didn’t mean that Danny would allow him to shake her hand. There was still the possibility that Danny didn’t even trust him and was just doing his job as a lawyer.

“What’s with the constipated look, huh? My daughter wants to shake your hand and even put sanitizer on first which means that she obviously wants to shake your hand. Stop being a neanderthal before you hurt my monkey’s feelings,” Danny ranted which caused the inmate to close the distance and shake the little girl's hand. 

"It's nice to meet you, Mr.Steve," she smiled, "is it okay if we shake four times?" She had to ask, her smile fading slightly. It pulled at Steve's heart strings when he realized that she dealt with the same pattern as him or something close to it. 

"Four is good. I do well with multiples of two."

He watched as the little girl’s smile brightened once again and they shook hands four times before parting and sitting down at the metal table with Danny. He looked between the father and daughter and smiled a little as they began to talk about something that had happened at the young girl’s after school program. After a little while Steve had gotten lost in the conversation while his eyes tried to follow their lips along with the crazy hand ad arm movements. The inmate thought to himself that they were both very gestural people and wondered if it was a New Jersey thing or just a special pinch in the Williams’ DNA.

“I’m going to help you get out of here,” Grace said, causing both men to stare at her in silence and shock, “I’m going to write letters to judges and maybe the mayor or governor until someone listens. I know you did bad things Mr. Steve, but I believe that you are a good person at heart. What we have…it-it hurts us because we end up hurting those around us and it’s not always something we can stop.”

Hearing Grace’s words, Steve took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. He could feel his eyes brim with tears and shifted his glance to look at Danny who had just looked over at him. They sat there staring at each other in silence before the dark haired man reached his hand out and grabbed the blonde’s to give it a small squeeze. He didn’t have space to think about dirt and germs when he had people like Grace and Danny standing so firmly in his corner.


	7. A Loss Is A Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’s dead, Rach,”

So the thing about Lori was that she liked Max and he liked helping his friends any way he could. The bad thing about this was that Danny abused it while no one was none the wiser. It was the day after he and Grace had gone to visit Steve in prison. His little girl had taken a liking to the inmate and it seemed to do Steve a world of good to have Danny's monkey care about him when she hardly knew him. Danny didn't mind though. The two of them had clicked and before he knew it, Steve was teaching his little girl pidgin and the blonde was ready to punch him (not that he actually did, mind you). 

With Grace having Steve wrapped around her finger so quickly a part of Dany wanted to work on getting the inmate in a safer environment even quicker than he wanted to before. He had spoken to Max about the weird things that seemed to have been going on at the prison and showed how distraught he was with his own information. It wasn't a nice play, but the little mail clerk of a Bergman ate it up and before Danny knew it, Lori was calling his cell phone as he headed to his partner, Meka's house. He hadn't seen the guy since before the blonde took off to help a friend move and hadn't heard from him in equal time. 

"This is Williams," he answered, his eyes on the road ahead of him. 

"Danny? It's A.D.A Weston."

"Weston?" Danny asked with a frown though he knew exactly why she was calling, "what do I give the pleasure? I'm pretty sure I'm not due in court or even have a client that you deal with at the moment."

"You aren't and you don't. This is about Judge Jameson," oh, that wasn't something he expected. He had told Max about the prison and Noshimuri, not the judge he thought had a hand in it all, "do you think that we can meet later today? I have court at nine, but I should be done before lunch."

Danny agreed to meet with Lori and hung up the phone before sitting in the silence of his Camero. He wasn't sure exactly what was going on at that point. It had seemed as though his plan was taking a tailspin of some sort and was now driving itself though he wasn't sure where it was leading. He needed to get a handle on it before it crashes and burned in the worst of ways. 

With one hand in the wheel, the blonde leaned over slightly and tapped his screen to dial a number that he hadn't used in years. If it worked it would have been a miracle. Hell, Danny was pretty sure the number itself was covered in cobwebs from lack of use, but it rang and rang before finally getting picked up. 

"Who's this?" The grunt of a voice asked. 

Danny was about to reply, but was silent as his partner's house came into view and he saw a couple of police cars. He didn't bother answering and instead ended the call before parking just down the street and jogging up to the house. He didn't give a damn if he built up a sweat in his light blue dress shirt and black vest, not when something serious seemed to happen at the house of his close friend. 

As he closed the distance, Meka's crying wife came into his view as the cops were leaving. His own heart stuttered to a stop as he willed himself to keep moving. He told himself repeatedly that maybe it wasn't as bad as his brain was saying it was. Perhaps he was just arrested or helping escort someone to a trial, but a big, logical part of him knew that Meka didn't just vanish into thin air for almost two weeks and then suddenly returned...at least not alive anyway. 

"Amy. Amy, what happened?" He asked, closing the last few feet of distance before his hands shot out to hold the woman upright. She was crying and shaking the same way Rachel had when she found out her father had cancer. It was bad and pulled at Danny's heartstrings in a way that had him fighting back anger and tears.

"Meka's gone, Danny!" She wailed, "he's dead." 

*****

The day just seemed to drag on from there. Danny felt lost in the world, but his feet kept moving and he went through the motions albeit, a little differently. He picked Meka and Amy's little boy up from school and brought him to the house. The child knew something was wrong, probably knew that his father wasn't going to be coming home ever again. Just thinking about it made the blonde sting with a rage he hadn't felt since he found out Rachel and her new husband decided to move his little girl to the pineapple-infested hell hole that people called Hawaii. 

The ride back to Meka's house was silent between the two of them. When the Jersey native parked in front of the house, he stared at Billy from the rear view mirror and watched as the little boy cried silently as if Meka had told him that men don't cry. He doubted those words ever came from his now late friend, but for some reason they rang in Danny's ears identical to the roaring fires his own father used to fight years ago in New Jersey. 

"How about we grab your mom and get some shaved ice, huh?" Danny suddenly suggested softly.

Billy was silent for so long that Danny would have thought that the kid fell asleep from emotion exhaustion if not for the fact that he was still looking at him from the mirror. Then he could hear the little voice and all but squinted to see his lips moving, "can Grace come with us?"

The question turned over in his head a few times and Danny was pretty sure that if he asked, he'd just end up playing with very, very fuel filled fire. Knowing that, he gave a scratch to his scruffy chin and told the dark haired kid to go inside and get his mother while he saw if he could get Grace to join them. 

The idea of Danny's daughter possibly joining them for shaved ice seemed to get the boy to move a little quicker and the blonde wasn't sure if he wanted to take out a restraining order or ruffle his hair for having a tiny crush. He kept his eyes on Billy as he made his way into the Hanamoa house and waited until the door was closed before calling his ex-wife who would surely put the fear of something otherworldly in him. 

"Daniel, you've been calling me an awful lot lately. Have you realized that?" Rachel said upon answering his call. 

"I know, Rach, I'm actually sorry that I keep bugging you," he said only to receive a moment of silence, "Rachel?"

"I'm curious, Daniel, how much of your soul did you have to willingly sacrifice to apologize?" She wondered over the phone only to have Danny roll his eyes. It seemed that she realized that and chuckled softly before saying, “I was just about to head out with Charlie and Grace. They don’t like being cooped up in the house all day.”

“That’s great…Do you think you can meet me, Amy, and Billy for shaved ice?” Danny asked, wanting the conversation to go as smoothly as possible without a sudden napalm.

“Where’s Meka? Shouldn’t he be joining you three?”

“Rachel…” He started with something similar to regret and hurt already filling his voice.

“Daniel? Oh, Daniel please tell me—“

“He’s dead, Rach,” he cut her off, letting his ex know that the man they were both close to had passed away.


	8. Wanted More Than A Win

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He's dead. Kaleo shot him as they were passing each other at the precinct. Guy, snatched the gun from an officer and put two in his chest before he knew what hit him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I guess you'd call a filler chapter. You can skip it, but I'd suggest that you don't. I apologize for not posting the other day.

The next time that Steve laid eyes on Danny, it was as the lawyer was accompanying two guards towards the medical ward. It was a dimly lit area that the former SEAL had never been aquatinted with, but from the shouts of a certain Jersy blonde, he was fairly certain that it wasn't going to look quite the same again. 

From what Steve had picked up from Chin and occasionally Wo Fat, some guard named Kaleo had killed someone that the lawyer knew and tried pinning it on the medical worker, Ochoa. The medical guy was dirty anyway, but it had nothing to do with the man who Kaleo had killed. 

"So where's Ochoa?" Steve asked as he finished drying his hair. He had just finished showering and had been getting the complete story from Chin. It had been weeks since the event in the medical ward and he had only been getting bits and pieces. 

"He's dead. Kaleo shot him as they were passing each other at the precinct. Guy, snatched the gun from an officer and put two in his chest before he knew what hit him."

"I bet Danny was pissed."

"Actually, he couldn't have been happier. He had punched the shit out of Kaleo in the interrogation room beforehand. When he found out that he had been stupid and killed Ochoa, your Jersey pretty much burst his seams knowing that there was no way he was getting out of prison," Chin informed Steve whose jaw clenched at the mention of the other possessing the lawyer. 

Once he was dried off, the inmate got dressed with his eyes on Chin. He hated the idea of looking at the floor or the walls since he knew just how unclean they were. It made his skin itch and he wanted to flip out, but he contained himself. It was an inner battle that was slowly chipping away at what sanity he had left, but he preferred that over dealing with Wo Fat in solitary. 

"How did He get so close to the investigation? He's not a cop."

"Same way that his partner, Meka had. He investigated and then called in favors. Danny wasn't about to have Meka blamed for something that Kaleo was doing and be labeled a disbarred lawyer in death," Chin explained as he wiped down the shackles before placing them back on Steve. 

He figured that made sense. Though he only knew Danny because of the criminal things he had done that landed him in prison and the Jersey blonde happened to be a lawyer. Thinking about it, Steve wondered if they would have met at all if his OCD hadn't gotten so bad. Would it have been possible that they'd meet and grow close to each other? Would Steve have been able to hug the blonde and play with Gracie without ever having to stop? If he was on the outside of the corrupt prison would life have some sort of normalcy? If he had met Danny before he went to Catherine's that night, would she have lived?

The questions ran through his head as he walked back to his cell with Chin. He thought about how he would have done the same thing as Danny if he was in the lawyer's position. He would have done anything to catch the asshole who had killed his friend. There wouldn't have been any stopping him and just as Danny had done, he would have called in every favor he had to in order to give him the justice he deserved. 

*****

Danny sat at his desk and typed away on his computer. He was still working off steam from dealing with Meka's murder and Kaleo. His friend had kept what he had been digging into to himself and it had gotten him killed. He wasn't even sure how the dead lawyer had even gotten word that Kaleo was running drugs in and out of the prison for Ochoa. He knew that Kaleo was a slimy bastard with a smooth tongue, but the guy went so far as to try and pin the drug running on Meka. The evidence was good, almost solid in fact, but it Danny knew better. 

_Who the hell contacted you?_ He wondered, removing one hand from the keyboard and tapping his fingers on the desk rhythmically. It was pissing Danny off that there was still a piece missing from the puzzle. He couldn't let it go. There was something nagging him in the back of his mind that whoever had tipped off Meka knew something about what was going on in the prison. At first he thought it was some thug named Sang Min who had tipped Meka off just like he had told Danny about Kaleo, but the guy was scared shitless to talk about who tipped off Meka. Whoever it had been had seriously put the fear of some holy deity into the native thug. 

After a few minutes of staring at the screen, Danny blew out a breath and pushed both his hands to his hair, smoothing it back for the upteenth time that day. He eyes were starting to get tired, but he didn't want to stop. He didn't know how to and that was one of the things that had ended his marriage. 

He gave a quick glance to the clock hanging on the wall and groaned when he saw that it was have past eleven. The day was still early, but it felt like it had already been going on for more hours than it actually had. 

"Danny," he heard a voice call from the doorway. He turned his chair slightly and looked at the tall brunette who his ex was now happily married to, "you've been working on the Meka thing for too long. Go home and relax. You found the guy who killed him, enjoy that victory for now."

"What are you doing here?" Danny asked, rather than taking Stan's advice. He was truly curious as to what the D.A was doing at his law firm. They worked with two different sets of people and they weren't exactly the best of friends. It was weird enough that they grew closer after Danny had shot Stan in order to please a disgruntled criminal whose case he had lost. The shoring was to get Grace back and it had worked after a few hours of other unmentionable things had happened.

"My shoulder was tingling and told me you needed to see a friendly face," Stan said with a slight shrug though he was bull shitting the other. It didn't matter though, it had caused a smile to crack on Danny's face and he heard a smile from the Jersey native that sent a glow through the room that hadn't been there before. 

It didn't take long before Stan saw the fingers twitch and Danny's hands and arms come to life in a flurry of motions that could only be Danny. It was how the guy communicated. His loud, boisterous voice and his gesturing movements to emphasize his words. The D.A listen to the other ask him if he had rehearsed that little bit or just thought it up on the fly. He didn't give him an actual answer, but he did convince him to have a slightly early lunch at the single decent pizza place that Hawaii had to offer. Danny's only rules were that Stan was paying and there would be no pineapple.


	9. We Be The Calvary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One...
> 
> Danny made his way to the door and kept out of line of the windows. 
> 
> Two...
> 
> He grabbed the door knob and took a deep breath. Anticipation of an attack shook through his core. 
> 
> Three...

After lunch with Stan, Danny had decided to go home when he suddenly got a call. He heard the familiar electronic voice and pulled the phone from his ear to press the needed button before it started to ring. 

"Danny?" Steve's voice came though the line much to the lawyer's surprise. He hadn't expected the other to call him, much less use the phones in the prison. He could only imagine how long it took for the inmate to scrubbed the phone down, put it down however many times, and then be able to call him.

"Steven," he said slowly, "are you actually using the prison phone?"

"Yeah, I suppose I am," the former SEAL said with a hint of surprise in his own voice. It seemed that Steve hadn't even expected himself to actually use the phone. They shared a few seconds of silence before the dark haired male cleared his throat. 

"I'm sorry about Meka," Steve told Danny. The blonde could hear the sympathy in the other's voice and it hit him hard. Hearing Steve apologize for the death of his friend had made it all the more real. Meka was actually gone. Yeah, he had helped solve his murder, but it hadn't brought the Hawaiian native back. He was still gone. 

A choked sob escaped Danny and he quickly bit his bottom lip as tears poured down his cheeks as the loss finally hit him with its full load. Steve heard the other and sucked in a sharp breath as he carefully leaned against the wall by the phone. He spoke softly into the mouthpiece about nothing that could constitute as an actual conversation. They were just words. They were caring and warm and comforting in their entirety. It was unlike anything that the former military man had been used to, but he managed it for Danny. He found that he would do a lot of things for Danny and even Grace of he had to. 

Chin watched as Steve leaned against the wall with his head tipped low and murmuring words into the phone, but said nothing. He didn't need to know what was being said because he knew who was on the other end of that call. However, it was only when he heard the hint of a chuckle from the inmate that he knew the conversation had picked up a friendlier beat. It wasn't as sad as it was just moments ago. 

"Are you going to come when I get evaluated?" Steve couldn't help himself from asking as they wrapped up their call. 

"No, but I know the person doing your eval. She's my ex-wife. You'll be in good hands, Steve," Danny assured the other as he pulled into the driveway of his home. 

"You know I'm not crazy, right? Grace doesn't think I'm crazy either?"

Danny was silent for a moment, his blue eyes staring out at his home. "Steven J. McGarrett, Grace and I do not believe within an inch of our beings that you are crazy. A Neanderthal with a lack of social abilities, yes, but not crazy," he told the former SEAL. 

He heard Steve laugh softly over the line before they quietly said goodbye with promises to meet sometime in the next few weeks. As he hung up the call, Danny leaned his head against the back of the seat. He felt exhausted between the late nights and finally the crying. The blonde let out a shuddered breath. He had to keep himself calm or at least that's what he was telling himself. Sure, his family was all for the emotions be the sharing, but he felt as though he didn't have time for that. He ha a corrupt judge and God knew what else to take care of before he could be all the heights of emotion that flowed through him. 

"Almost to the finish line Williams," he told himself as he opened the car door and got out of the vehicle. 

Almost instantly, Danny could tell that something was different. Not wrong, but different, like something was out of place. His mother would have told him he was being paranoid. It wasn't a word he liked much and after the thing with his brother, Matty, he appreciated those who took more caution instead of simply trusting right off the bat. 

_Wish I was a cop. Always have a damn gun._ He thought to himself as he slowly moved to the front door. His hands itched for a fight to let out some of the anger that had been pint up inside him for the last few weeks, but he knew better than to jump into a situation. If he remembered correctly, it was Matty that told him he couldn't bring his fists to a gun fight. 

One...

Danny made his way to the door and kept out of line of the windows. 

Two...

He grabbed the door knob and took a deep breath. Anticipation of an attack shook through his core. 

Three...

With a quick turn of the wrist, Danny flung the door open and grabbed the vase by the door before hurling it at the first human shaped figure he saw. It just barely missed the intruder who had ducked in just the nick of time. 

"Woah! Cool it, will ya?" A woman's voice shrieked. It sounded familiar and Danny flicked on a light to see Mary of all people in his living room. 

"Mary? What the hell do you think you're doing? You can't just sneak into my house like that. Did you and your brother not learn manners?" He ranted, his arms going as fast as his mouth as he closed the door with his foot and walked further into the house. 

"What else was I supposed to do? Steve won't let me visit him."

The lawyer stared at his client's sister for a moment before letting out a sigh and pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew that Steve was keeping the people from his life before at a distance, but he hadn't realized that the emotionally inept idiot had pushed his own sister away. What did he think he was doing?

"Don't get mad at him, Danny. He can only help himself so much. My inhaler SEAL of a brother never liked people seeing him weak," Mary soon said when she didn't get a response from the blonde. 

With a little coaxing, she got the other to sit on the couch with her in no time. They didn't talk much for the first couple of minutes, but then Mary turned to look at Danny. 

"I know that look, Mary. I hate that look and you know it too," the lawyer said as he eyed the young woman. She looked as though she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. It wasn't a look that Danny liked very much. In fact, Danny hated that look because the last time he saw it on her, he had to bail her out of jail because she snuck into the prison van to spend a minute talking to Steve. He still never figured out what they had been talking about, but he also felt like it was none of his business.

"Some guy came by earlier asking about you..."

"And?"

"And I might have told him where you work," Mary finished, causing Danny's heart to skip a beat. His immediate thought was that Wo Fat had hired someone to off him, but he doubted that since they didn't bother leaving him a warning. He had a feeling that men like Wo Fat were all about leaving warnings and a high body count, but he still wasn't sure where exactly Wo Fat sat in the whole ordeal that was going on. There was Judge Jameson who was looking more and more corrupt, the weird Warden Noshimuri, and then Wo Fat who seemed to be a bad guard. 

"Stop looking like that. Did they leave a number?" The Jersey native asked before getting a shake of the head as a reply. 

"No, he said that you already had it," she told him. 

*****

Danny stared at his phone for the better part of the morning the next day. He wasn't sure who had visited him even though he had a pretty good idea. Lacing his fingers together, he placed his chin on top of them and let out a sigh. He was going to end up with an even bigger headache than trying to agree on something to eat for dinner with Mary Ann McGarrett. He still couldn't figure out why he let her stay the night when she had the McGarrett family home to go to. 

"Sir, I'm sorry, but you can't just barge in like this!" Danny heard one of the paralegals shout before they went silent as another, more gruff voice sounded through the single floor building. It was a voice that the lawyer knew well and he slowly stood from his seat to investigate what was going on. 

He had just made it out his door when he was created by a blonde with big brown eyes and a predatory smile. He wasn't sure what the meaning of it was, but he was pretty sure that it meant trouble. 

"I found him!" She shouted over her shoulder, causing all the commotion to stop for a moment before two men came barreling through the office space before stopping in front of Danny. One looked serious while the other stuck to the girl's side with a case in hand. 

"We be the Calvary," said the serious, familiar face that slowly looseness into a faint smile. He was happy to see the blonde lawyer, but Danny wasn't stupid enough to think that he wasn't pissed for getting called earlier in the week and then hung up on. 

"We be the Calvary," Danny repeated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I just crossed Fandoms! This story is far from over so expect more from all these little cinnamon rolls!


	10. Something Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Stanley..." He said softly, looking off to the side, "I was killing in multiple of two. One blonde and one brunette. His mother was a blonde. I killed her in November. She was shoveling snow, but the path she was making wasn't even. I didn't even realize that he was there until he was calling out for her."

"Can't I go with you to see Super Steve?" Grace whined as she used her big brown eyes against her own mother.

Rachel let out a sigh and knelt down on the kitchen floor to look her daughter in the eye. She had to be careful of her skirt, but she managed not to crinkle it. With a firm look, she stared Grace in the eye and grabbed her forearms.

"Today isn't a good day to do that, Grace," she told the young girl, "I have to evaluate Mr. McGarrett and if he is in a bad mood I'm sure he wouldn't want you to see him."

"But mom, I know how he feels. We have the same problem. The only difference is that I have you and Danno."

The older brunette stared at the young girl for a long moment before letting out a sigh and getting up from the floor. She was so tempted to give in to the little girl, but she couldn't. It was bad enough that Danny was wrapped around her little finger. 

"You are going to school today, Grace. There is nothing that you can say that will change my mind. Do you understand?" She asked in a slightly clipped tone.

The little girl wanted to argue, but simply nodded her head in understanding and went to grab her book bag. As she left the kitchen, Stan was walking by, but stopped to see what was going on. 

"Why the long face, Gracie?"

"Mom won't let me visit Super Steve."

Stan raised a brow as he faintly remembered how his wife and Danny were both talking about an inmate named Steve. If it was the one he was thinking of, Stan wondered when Grace had met him and if it was a good idea. 

"Why do you call him "Super Steve"?"

"Because he was a SEAL," Grace said, acting like it was common sense. 

Simply giving a nod, Stan watched his step daughter run off b fore walking into the kitchen where Rachel was putting her briefcase together. He cleared his throat and closed the distance between them, wanting her to not be surprised and accidentally hurt the D.A. After a series of unfortunate events that had befallen them when Stan was prosecuting a well known developer, surprises were no longer something Rachel enjoyed much. 

Hearing Stan come into the kitchen, the psychologist looked up from the counter and gave her usual faint smile. She had just finished putting her things away and was closing the case when Her husband stopped in front of her with a hint of concern on his face. It didn't take her long to figure out what the hint of concern was for and she soon sighed. 

"I allowed Daniel to take her to see Steven McGarrett. He didn't do it behind our backs and he trusts the man a lot more than he trusts most," Rachel explained as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. 

"Why am I just finding out about this? Don't either of you trust me?" Stan asked with a frown, sounding a little more pathetic than he actually cared to admit. 

"I wasn't aware that I had to run the decisions of my child through you first, Stanley," Rachel said in a clipped tone, grabbing her bag and pushing past him towards the foyer. She called for Grace to come down stairs and waited patiently for her while Stan stayed in the kitchen. It was times like that, that distance between the two adults was best.

*****

Rachel sat across from the inmate and watched him with intent brown eyes. He reminded her a little of Grace before she was diagnosed and put on medication. It didn't take her long to wonder how long it had been since Danny had visited the poor man. 

"Why don't you tell me about yourself," she said softly, listening to the rhythm of two that he tapped against the table as if it were the beating of a heart. 

"My mother died when my sister and I were kids. My father shipped us to the mainland-" he started. He told her about how he lived with an uncle before graduating high school and going to Annapolis to study chemistry. He told her about when he joined the Navy and later the SEALs. By the time he was done telling her about everything before he started killing it had been over an hour into her visit. 

"When did you first realize your obsession with organization?" Rachel asked in a gentle voice as she carefully changed directions of the conversation. Her question was rewarded by a sharp intake of breath. 

"After my mother's accident I began depending on patterns of two. When I joined the Navy I began cleaning and organizing in a military fashion. Dirt was- is intolerable. There is no space for dirt or error. Things have to be precise," he said. 

"And those people that you killed..." Rachel let her voice trail off to leave the conversation open for Steve to direct. 

"They were dirty. They couldn't keep things clean and organized," the inmate said through clenched teeth. One look in his eyes showed Rachel that Steven was having an inner battle with himself. He knew that those poor victims were innocent, but his brain was constantly telling him the exact opposite. It was telling him that they were filthy and needed to be removed from the world. 

As the two beat tapping grew harder against the metal table, Danny's ex-wife leaned back slightly. She wasn't sure if the other was going to have an episode so she had to play things safe. 

"Can you tell me about the little boy that they found you with at the carnival?" She asked softly, her British accent trying for something soothing. Almost instantly, she could see Steve relax and his tapping grew a little lighter. 

"Stanley..." He said softly, looking off to the side, "I was killing in multiple of two. One blonde and one brunette. His mother was a blonde. I killed her in November. She was shoveling snow, but the path she was making wasn't even. I didn't even realize that he was there until he was calling out for her."

"He's blind, right?"

Steve gave a slight nod of the head before looking at his hands. She saw that they were clean, but the slightly older man could only see how much blood he had spilt on them. They stayed quiet for a little while. Rachel wanted to wait until Steve was ready to talk again. 

"I'm not crazy."

"I believe you," she said softly. 

"I think Stanley knew what I had done that night. Even though I visited him and checked in on him when I could... I think he knew the worst part of me. I think he accepted my apology."

Rachel gave a faint nod of understanding. From what she had read from the reports she could get her hands on, the child had indeed known about Steve killing his mother and didn't blame him. His OCD was just so bad that he couldn't control himself. She remembered Danny whistling at the information and giving the child "props" for being so understanding at such a young age. 

"What can you tell me about Catherine Rollins?" She asked. Not even a moment later, Steve was out of his sat and pacing back and forth. 

Catherine had been his first victim. She was the reason that he began killing. Her last words were to tell him he was crazy. He wasn't crazy though. He just needed things to be clean. Dirt didn't have a place in his surroundings. Clean and orderly. That was how he survived and it was perfect for him. 

Rachel watched the internal dialogue go on in Steve's head and it helped that the usually stoic man was rambling under his breath about order and patterns. He was in the middle of a break down and as he began to tap the beat away against his temple, Rachel slowly stood from the seat and backed away. She wasn't sure how Danny did it, but Steve was an unstable mess. Grace had spoken so highly of him, but the former Lieutenant Commander was no where near as stable as he was during the visit with her daughter.

"I'm not crazy!" He shouted, slamming his fist against the wall angrily. In seconds, Chin slammed open the door to get Rachel out of there. It had been a proven fact that letting Steve burn out in a secluded space was safer than trying to move him back to his cell after a bad visit. 

"I'll make sure you get the video from your visit," Chin said once the door was closed and locked. They could still hear Steve shouting about how he wasn't crazy and how everything needed to be organized.

There was no way in hell that they could have used his confession those four years ago if the meeting she just had with him was anything to go by. Rachel didn't care if he was asking for help or not.


	11. Meet and Greet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I got concerned when an old friend of mine called me a few weeks ago,” the other inmate told him, staying where he was on the bed and crossing his arms in front of his chest, “hadn’t seen the guy since we were boxing buddies in Jersey. I didn’t even know he was a lawyer. Turns out the whole arguing thing really works out for him.”

It was a few days after Rachel's visit that a new guard entered the prison. Chin didn't know much about him and Steve couldn't help, but think that he reminded him of someone. He thought that it was probably due to not seeing Danny in a while, but the former SEAL just couldn't be sure. 

It wasn't even Danny that the guard reminded him of. It was guy that he had met while overseas. He didn't remember his name, but the way he spoke reminded him of the confidential location that lead to the confidential meeting. 

"McGarrett," the familiar looking man called, tapping on the cell door. 

Steve got up from his cot and walked over to the cell door, his arms already coming up to rest on the open part so that they could be cuffed, “You’re new here, aren’t you?” He asked, his eyes flicking downwards to see that the dark skinned man was wearing a pair of gloves. He thought it was interesting that someone new seemed to know how appreciative he was of them wearing gloves.

“Just started today,” the young man said as he wiped the cuffs before putting them on the inmate, “shower first and then lunch.”

With a nod of his head, the former SEAL pulled his arms back and watched as the cell door slid open for him to leave. He was cautious and weary of the other. It didn’t matter to him that the new guard seemed familiar or that he wore gloves. After having to deal with all sorts of bad guys, Steve didn’t allow himself the luxury of letting his guard down. He couldn’t especially when there were guards like Wo Fat and Kaleo lurking around inside the prison walls.

Neither man spoke as they made their way to the showers. It was empty as usual at that time of day which worked out well for Steve. He didn’t have to worry about dealing with people getting too close to him or feeling as though they were filthy because they didn’t have a pattern, they weren’t showering right. He hated how his brain worked. It made him feel crazy despite the many times he had told everyone that he wasn’t. Even more so, Steve was beginning to wonder if he didn’t continuously say that he wasn’t crazy as a way to convince himself rather than to convince others.

“What’s your name?” The former Lieutenant Commander asked as the cuffs were removed from his wrists. He undid his zipper four times before removing his prison garbs and folding them in a neat pile that his old C.O would have been proud of.

“Hardison.”

“Just Hardison?” Steve asked, messing with the shower knobs for a moment after he made sure that they were clean.

“Just Hardison,” the guard confirmed, looking of to the side to give the other some privacy. It probably wasn’t something that the guy was used to since he was in prison and all, but Hardison wasn’t one for looking at other guys anyway…though there were a couple of times he took a peak at Elliot, but that was a story for a different day.

Again, Steve gave a nod of the head before letting the conversation die. There wasn’t much to say or be said. Yes, the inmate wondered where Chin was, but at the same time he knew that the guy had a life outside of the prison. He had a cousin that worked at a hospital that he had talked about visiting. Steve wondered if Chin finally found the time to hang out with her.

Steve repeated his washing process twice before turning the water off and stepping from the shower. He was surprised at the fresh towel that seemed to suddenly appear in Hardison’s hands and eyed the guard curiously before slowly taking it to dry himself off. He didn’t like the guy. He seemed to know too much about him without saying anything or even doing much. It didn’t help that he looked familiar, but Steve figured that was just a little bout of beautiful paranoia kicking into gear.

 _Maybe I’m just going through Danny withdrawal._ Steve joked to himself dryly as he began to think about the short spitfire of his Jersey native lawyer. Thinking about Danny made him think about Grace and he wondered how the little girl was doing. Her medication seemed to keep her relaxed enough, but he wondered if she had bad days and if she did he hoped that they weren’t very often.

“Ready to go?” He soon heard the guard ask. He was about to say that he still had to get dressed, but it seemed that he had done that on auto pilot while he was thinking about Danny and Grace. It seemed that his mind went on auto pilot quite a bit and Steve honestly wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“Yeah,” he nodded slightly before clearing his throat, “to the cafeteria.”

*****

The cafeteria was a mess and Steve was pretty sure that he could feel his skin crawling. He hated it. He hated the feeling of dirt and disorganization crowding in on him. It made him feel vulnerable and weak, but also unstable. He killed people- women when he felt as though he was being crowded in by such things and it didn’t matter if he could walk away. Logically, he knew he could turn and go, but his mind told him otherwise. Everything screamed at him that he couldn’t just walk away and yet he was forced to do just that inside the prison. He was cuffed and forced to walk away after he was done taking partial bites out of his lunch. Nothing touched, it was all separated, but the mess from the other inmates had caused him to lose his appetite.

The walk back to his cell was as quiet as his walk to the showers. Though he didn’t trust Hardison, he couldn’t deny that he could get used to the quiet that the other gave him even though he was sure that the guard was simply biting his tongue time and time again.

“Looks like you got a new cell mate,” the dark skinned guard said once they reached Steve’s prison residence. The guard and the inmate already inside the cell both watched for Steve’s reaction, though they weren’t obvious about it.

“I’m not supposed to have a cell mate,” Steve said through clenched teeth as he watched the brunette on the other side of the bars sit on the bed above his.

“We’ll get along great,” the other inmate said, sounding less than enthusiastic. He had some sort of smile on his face, but it really just seemed as if he was constipated.  
Without saying another word, Steve narrowed his eyes and shifted his gaze between both men before he allowed himself to be put back into the cell and then have the cuffs removed from his hands. He wanted to punch something. The idea of having someone in his personal space wasn’t something that Steve was very fond of. He would rather have spent the rest of his life sentence in solitary, but then there was the possibility of dealing with Wo Fat for god know how long.

Hardison nodded at the new inmate before walking off to explore the prison, leaving Steve alone to try and take care of things himself. He had seen the guy and his patterns so he knew that Danny wasn’t exaggerating when he said that Steve had a severe case of OCD. If anything he was downplaying it a little if his behavior in the cafeteria was anything to go by.

“Y’know, he was right about you,” the stranger told Steve who was pacing back and forth on the other side of the rather small cell. It didn’t seem like the former SEAL was even interested in what the other had to say.

“Did Wo Fat send you in here?”

“I got concerned when an old friend of mine called me a few weeks ago,” the other inmate told him, staying where he was on the bed and crossing his arms in front of his chest, “hadn’t seen the guy since we were boxing buddies in Jersey. I didn’t even know he was a lawyer. Turns out the whole arguing thing really works out for him.”

At hearing what the other had said, Steve knew immediately who he was talking about and stopped pacing the length of the cell before turning to stare at the other. He couldn’t believe that Danny had sent someone- two someone’s most likely- into the prison. It was smart if they planned on taking down Noshimuri, to have an inmate and a guard that could get the right intel where Steve was more of a liability than anything. It hurt him to really think that, but he had to come to terms with that truth if no others.

“He called you to help with this?” Steve asked in a hushed voice, looking directly at the other who gave him a shrug of the shoulder.

“Something like that. Tell me what you know about this place," he said and Steve did.


	12. Keep Your Enemies Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well don't follow after him and we shall get along just fine. You could use a friend inside of prison even if you are a guard. You never know when you might find yourself in a bad situation," he all but threatened with a smile.

Two weeks had passed when Alec was finally able to start getting close to Wo Fat. The guy was good, better than even Parker would have admitted. It was almost scary how stealthy the guy managed to be and Alec voiced his concerns to both Elliot and Danny.

“Just get close to him. Stop getting scared. He can’t do anything to you,” Elliot whispered angrily to the dark skinned man from the other side of his cell door. Steve had a visit from Danny so they didn’t have to keep an eye on him to make sure that the former SEAL didn’t end up blowing a fuse.

“Can’t do anything? Elliot, are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?” Harrison asked, giving the other a look that could only be read as ‘are you kidding me or just stupid?’.

“I taught you how to defend yourself. Are you saying I didn’t do a good job?”

Watching the blue eyed man glare at him, Alec held up his hands in surrender before stepping back a little. He wasn’t in the mood to pick a fight with Elliot when he had to get close to some crazy Hawaiian that was a bad seed with big ties. If his information was anything to go on, Wo Fat was a ghost, or more like a poltergeist that used people to fuck with other people. The one thing that Hardison couldn’t figure out was why the guy had decided to go after Steve.

“I got a meeting with the Noshimuri guy in a few minutes. If I can get him to flip on Wo Fat then maybe we’ll get somewhere,” Alec informed the other in a voice just shy of a whisper. They couldn’t be too sure about who was listening in and they couldn’t trust anyone, but that was nothing different. It was how they always operated.

With a nod from Elliot, the hacker walked off and began whistling a tune as he made his way to the warden’s office. He knew that he had to get close to Wo Fat, but the guy was guarded, like super secretive ‘I’ll kill you if you know my name’ kinda guarded. He gave Alec the creeps and it was obvious that getting close to him wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, the whole plan sucked rusty nails. Nathan had taught them better and Hardison was mentally kicking himself that they weren’t going after the one person who was in Wo Fat’s grasp. Sure, the hacker had suggested it to Elliot before he left him alone in the cell, but now that Hardison was alone he could really let it sink in instead of just spouting an idea to get Elliot from criticizing his very rational fear.

Getting close to Noshimuri was the key. If they could cripple him then they could cripple Wo Fat. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was more manageable than going after a man like the one who seemed to have made it his personal mission to haunt Steven J. McGarrett.

“Mr. Hollis,” a voice sounded from behind as the hacker began to slow his steps at a closed door. He knew the voice from recordings and previous interactions, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel a cold gust of wind twirl up and down his spine, “are you heading to the warden’s office?”

Looking over his shoulder, Hardison glanced at Wo Fat and gave a nod of his head, “yeah, he wanted to meet with me. Feels like going to the principles office,” he told the other with a nervous lick of his lips and a slight shrug. here may have even been a nervous chuckle thrown in, but he wasn’t about to admit to all of that.

Wo Fat seemed to chalk up his nervous behavior to having to meet with the warden and gave him a predatory look. There was a faint smile, but he reminded Hardison of Scar from The Lion King. He was just thankful that he wasn’t the guy’s brother…or his nephew…or a hyena.

_Maybe Sophie was right about me needing to get a grip and go to therapy._ He thought to himself as he watched Wo Fat step closer. He moved out of the guard’s way and turned to watch him unlock the door before holding it open.

“The guards in the surveillance room tend to be awfully slow. I’ll help you get to the warden’s office. You don’t know where it is, correct?”

“Thanks man, I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” Hardison told the other as he walked through the open door, “that’d be a big help, too. Thanks.”

It made Hardison want to complain to Elliot and Parker about how he had to deal with Wo Fat. The whole playing nice and naive was a pain in the ass. He was better off behind a computer with his sly quips and outward complaining about everything. Hell, he missed Lucille! His baby was parked at Danny’s and wasn’t even getting the love that she deserved while he had to go and pretend to be some newbie guard at a very bad prison. He bet that if the guy wanted to, Wo Fat could shoot him in the head right there and then toss him into some incinerator without anyone batting an eyelash or asking a question.

“I’ve noticed that you wear gloves when dealing with a certain prisoner,” Wo Fat began after about ten minutes of walking in silence.

“You’re talking about McGarrett, right? The serial killer?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice sounding as though he was holding back a smile, “I have a favor to ask of you regarding him.”

“What’s the favor?” Hardison asked with just the right amount of suspicion. He didn’t want Wo Fat to think that he was too eager, but he also didn’t want him to think that he didn’t trust the other at all. Not too mention that the whole scene playing out between the two of them was working in Hardison’s favor as far as getting close to the older man. He knew he wouldn’t get too close, but every lit nudge helped.

“I need you to stop wearing those gloves. He shouldn’t be treated any differently than the other prisoners in here, don’t you agree?”

Oh, this guy was bad. He was like an evil villain if Hardison ever saw one and that was saying something since he had dealt with a lot of bad dudes we he joined Nathan Ford's band of Merry Bad Guys. Rubbing the back of his neck, the hacker acted as though he was seriously considering the other man's words. 

"Yeah, you got a point. I guess watch Kelly handle him with gloves kinda got me doing the same thing," he told Wo Fat who nodded in understanding. 

"Well don't follow after him and we shall get along just fine. You could use a friend inside of prison even if you are a guard. You never know when you might find yourself in a bad situation," he all but threatened with a smile. 

Nope. Nun uh. Hardison wanted to get the fuck out of dodge after hearing the guy threaten him in such an ominous tone. There was no way in hell that it wasn't going to be acted upon. The hacker valued his life a little too much, but at the same time he knew he couldn't just ditch Steve and Danny when a guy like him was in Hawaii. Elliot and Parker wouldn't just up and leave either. 

Instead of running, Hardison nodded his head and pulled the gloves from his pocket before handing them over to Wo Fat. He asked him to toss them since he thought it as more likely for the other to find a trash can. He may have also added that he had to hurry and get going due to already being late for his meeting with Noshimuri. 

*****

Getting close to the warden was easier than Danny had expected for Hardison. He didn't know the guy well, but so far he was proving to be a lot more capable than Danny was first willing to admit. However, it didn't help his ego thinking that he, himself was useless in the planning of bringing down the warden to cripple Wo Fat. 

"I took a look at Noshimuri's financials and he definitely looks clean as far as IRS is concerned," Hardison informed him, "he owns a bunch of prisons all over the country and runs charity events like clockwork. He looks like an A plus guy."

"So how the hell do we bring him down?"

"I've been talking with Noshimuri and found out that he has a brother. He's a guard at one of his other prisons in Hawaii. Now, when I looked up the brother, Koji, I found a bunch of things that lead to the dude being a bad egg. I mean, Wo Fat is bad and all, but the guy is smart enough to keep it way under the radar."

"And Koji is the opposite," Danny supplied as he got up from the couch and looked at the display of screens that surrounded his living room. He had asked the. To not mess up his walls so Hardison had made a roundabout of computers to show everything he had found and been working on. 

"Exactly," Hardison nodded, pressing a button. And pulling up all type of information, "Koji has been report several times for harassment of inmates, sexual misconduct, and even extortion."

Danny examined one of the screens and scratched at the stubble on his cheek. He looked as though he was confused and also in deep thought. He was trying to piece things together and it wasn't for the first time that Hardison wondered if the lawyer was really supposed to be a cop. 

"It says he's the head guard over at Kulani correctional."

"Yeah, he is."

"How the hell is he a guard at all with all these write ups against him?" Danny asked, his arms beginning to gesture his frustration. Hardison had been warned in advance by Elliot that the blonde tended to gesture a lot more than other people. It was a miracle his arms didn't turn into wind propellers and carry his small stature off the some far away land already.

"Hiro keeps covering up the charges like they're layers on a freaking cake. I mean, they are stacked pretty fucking high. Do you know how long it took me to uncover this by computer? Parker had to sneak into three different buildings to download the files onto a flash drive and then get close to Hiro Noshimuri her damn self to get the last pieces of information so I could work it all out."

Once he was done talking, Hardison could see that Danny was gearing up for one hell of a rant that the hacker was pretty sure he'd agree with a hundred percent. The rant never came, however, due to a call the lawyer suddenly received from his ex-wife's new husband.


	13. Freedom Comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was crazy or at least that was what the officer thought as he took a step back in anticipation that the prisoner would eventually break through the cuffs. "So you admit to killing those women?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say in advance that I am not an expert on the legal system, but I did my best to go based off what I did know and what I could find online.

The problem with so many people realizing that things weren't what they seemed is that the bad guys slowly began to catch on. While many were still in the dark about Judge Jameson, a little over a handful of people were circling around Warden Noshimuri and his brother, Koji. It had seemed that Danny and the gang weren't the only ones after the two men even if it was for different reasons. 

With an investigation underway thanks to Stan's help, Danny actually thought that they'd be getting somewhere. That things were looking up and he could count another win. The only problem was that it soon turned to shit when some blogger got a hold of the information and blasted it all over the Internet. 

"Who the hell is the idiot that found out about the Noshimuri's?" Danny asked, pacing back and forth in Stan's office. The D.A along with Parker and Hardison sat in silence as they allowed the lawyer to rant continuously about how some blogger blew open the one thing they were trying to keep quiet about, the one thing that only a handful of people were truly aware of.

Hardison felt the worst about the leak because he couldn’t pinpoint where it had come from. The signal jumped around at such an alarming pace that he didn’t even know the blogger’s real name. It pissed him off that he had been bested and that he couldn’t do something so simple as to keep a tight lid on the Noshimuri’s. It didn’t help that the news networks were picking up on the story and Hiro had gone underground. They still weren’t even sure where the warden had disappeared to. All they knew was that his businessman of a son had taken over for him and regrettably so.

“Does Wo Fat know about where all the information is coming from?” Danny soon asked, turning on his heels to face the hacker.

“I doubt it. He seems as confused and pissed as you. That seriously means something though since the guy is always the calmest most guarded dude there is,” he replied, looking right at the blonde before hearing Stan clear his throat. 

All eyes turned to the D.A and waited in anticipation and silence for him to say something- anything that could be a game changer and help their cause. Danny, more than any of them, believed that everyone deserved fairness and that wasn’t what the people in Noshimuri’s prisons were receiving.

“Rachel already did the psych evaluation on Steve, right? And even though I just became the D.A shortly before he was arrested in Honolulu, I have all the records from his case just like you do,” Stan said, looking at Danny, “I also have his taped confession. It was sent to me a few weeks ago.”

“You mean the taped confession that was conveniently lost before I had a chance to represent my client?” Danny asked.

“Technically he was being represented by someone else at the time.”

“Yeah, and that guy dropped the ball and left a lawyer’s nightmare in his wake just before you came in with a plea deal.”

Stan stared at Danny for a moment before taking a deep breath and using one hand to scrub at his face. He knew that the defense attorney loved to argue, but he couldn’t exactly argue with him. Hell, Stan himself cringed at the mess that the state attorney had left for Dany to try and take care of after Mary Ann McGarrett had hired him to defend her brother.

“The state’s attorney messed up the whole case, I’ll give you that. It was a nightmare to sift through and all we had to go on was a written statement from Steve himself.”

“Rachel can attest that Steve wasn’t in his right mind!” Danny shouted, his arms gesturing his frustration as usual, “his OCD is so severe that he can’t go through life without the appropriate help. He wasn’t thinking clearly when he committed those murders and he hardly thinks clearly on even the best of days!”

As Danny shouted and ranted at Stan, the brunette leaned back in his seat and held his hands up in a motion of surrendering. It was the only way he knew how to deal with a Williams when they were so worked up.

“Calm down and listen for a minute, alright?” Parker beat Stan to the line as she got up and placed a hand on the older man’s shoulder before giving it a light squeeze, “Listen to what Stan has to say.”

It wasn’t in Danny’s nature to back down, but he took a deep breath and pushed both hands over his slicked back hair to keep himself calm. After assuring the three people in the room that he was fine, Parker took a step back while Danny looked at Stan and waited for the brunette to say what was on his mind. He watched the lawyer put his hands down before rubbing one over his mouth for a minute.

“I have the taped confession that went missing,” he repeated, “that, along with the records we both have and the evaluation that Rachel conducted we can bring it to the judge-“

“Not Judge Jameson,” Danny interrupted.

“Yes, Judge Jameson,” Stan said with a sharp tone in his voice, “Jameson is on the tight rope right now. There’s a possibility that she’s going to get disbarred and she was the one that allowed for the plea deal to go through. If the board finds out that she allowed the confession of a mentally unstable man to be used then they would disbar her without a second thought.”

“We could get him out on a technicality,” Danny breathed, his blue eyes wide and bright at the idea of finally freeing Steve from the prison and getting him he help he actually needed.

Stan didn’t even bother to say the words as he nodded his head in agreement and kept his eyes locked on Danny’s. With the two lawyers seemingly in their own world about when and how to bring the necessary files to Jameson, Parker grabbed Hardison by the sleeve of his shirt and pulled him out of the office. 

*****

_Steve laid in the hospital bed and continued to pull at the cuffs that bound his wrist to the hospital bed. The skin had broken over and over again until it was a bloody, chasing mess that the nurses had a hard time looking at._

_"Do you know why you're in those cuffs?" One of the officers asked, ignoring Steve's attempts at getting free._

_"Let me out of here. Please get these off me. It's too dirty in here, the sheets aren't folded right," the Navy SEAL pleaded with a look in his eyes that screamed for escape._

_"Do you know why you're in those cuffs?" The officer repeated, staring at the brunette with a cold expression. He kept out of the line of the camera that was set up to tape the confession that he was going to get. The confession that was going to pave the way to the rest of his career._

_"Please just get them off me!"_

_"You are suspected of killing twelve women, Mr. McGarrett."_

_Steve was silent, his face nothing like that of a toughened SEAL. He looked afraid and on the brink of losing whatever hold he had left. He was so scared and out of control. As he struggled against the cuffs, he began to bleed more which only aggravated him because he couldn't clean up his own mess. He couldn't clean anything!_

_"Help me...please," he begged silently, "please just help me."_

_"Tell me what you did. Why did you kill those women? They were innocent -"_

_"They were filthy!" Steve shouted at the officer. "They deserved what they got. They needed to be punished! They weren't clean. They didn't do it right. Organization and cleanliness. Those are the rules. That is the military way!"_

_He was crazy or at least that was what the officer thought as he took a step back in anticipation that the prisoner would eventually break through the cuffs. "So you admit to killing those women?"_

_"Yes!"_

Danny cringed at watching the video while Stan sat there tight lipped. When it was over they both looked towards Judge Jameson who honestly looked horrified. The way the confession was gotten was against protocol. It wasn't admissible in court and it was obvious why it had been "lost" for so long. 

"This was the taped confession that they used?" Jameson asked with a weak voice. 

"It was supposedly lost when plea bargains were being written and worked through. All we had was a signed confession to go on," Stan explained. 

Jameson swallowed hard and closed her eyes for a brief moment, "is this the only copy?"

"It had been sent to D.A. Edwards anonymously and the forensics lab proves that it's real-"

"Are there copies of this?" She asked again, cutting off Danny as she gave both men a sharp look. It was Stan who gave a faint nod of his head. 

"We believe that whoever sent me the tape may have made copies. Anyone with half a brain can tell that the confession was obtained against regulations. They want justice to be served."

"It's been almost five years?"

"Granted ma'am, but with the recent scandal of Hiro and Koji Noshimuri hitting the public it seems that certain things are being uncovered in the justice system," Danny said, keeping his hands in his pockets to keep from flying off the handle. A rant was brewing inside him, but even he was smart enough to wait until he was out of Jameson's presence. 

"Meka Hanamoa also lost his life earlier this year by uncovering corruption from within one of the prisons that Hiro Noshimuri owned," Stan added, causing the blonde lawyer to suck in a sharp breath and close his blue eyes for a moment at hearing the name of his late friend. He had kept in touch with Amy, but they both seemed to avoid saying Meka's name more often than not. 

Jameson was silent and looked between the two lawyers that usually represented different sides of the law. It wasn't very often that she'd see two lawyers come together to free a criminal, but she couldn't turn them away. They had too much evidence of wrong doing within the correctional system and if there were copies of the taped confession out there she was sure someone would leak them and she would have a political frenzy on her hands. If she had any chance of becoming governor than she had to release Steven McGarrett on the technicality that was obvious on the tape she had been presented.


	14. Breathe Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the day that Steve and Danny have both been praying for.

It was something that he hadn't seen in five years. The inside of the courtroom smelled of cleaner and cologne. The latter of the two smells was subtle In itself and covered over with pure Jersey attitude.

"The suit looks good," Danny whispered from beside him as they waited for the judge to arrive.

"You picked it out for me," Steve mumbled, keeping his eyes on the freshly waxed door the judge usually exited and entered from. It was clean and without its blemishes which was something that grounded Steve. As long as he stared at that beautifully perfect looking door he didn't have to think about the rest of the court room. He didn't have to think about what was happening. 

The blonde allowed the silence to fall between them, but Steve thought that he could actually hear Danny's smug smile for a moment. The smugness was brought on by a mixture of events that had unfolded. However, Danny didn't let tells victories get to him. He couldn't allow them to because once he did then he would crash and burn the minute he got a loss. 

With a deep breath through his nose, the lawyer turned his head to look at Stan who was sitting there ever so patiently. They both knew what the outcome was going to be. They had spoken to the judge several times leading up to the court appearance and she made it clear that she wasn't about to change her mind on the matter. 

"All rise for the honorable Judge Jameson," the Bailiff spoke loudly. The idle chatter behind the partition quieted and both the defense and prosecutor rose with their heads in the direction of the far wall where the judge would be sitting. 

Before long, Jameson emerged from the back room and took her seat at the podium. She instructed everyone to sit and like obedient school children they had done just that. 

"Steven McGarrett, it has been brought to my attention that your confession was not supplied by the necessary means. The lost tape of you confession has also been brought forth and it stands to reason that you were not mentally capable of supplying a confession at all. With this knowledge, I am sad to admit that you have been exonerated of the twelve counts of murder due to a technicality. The officer in charge of your original investigation is being brought under questioning and I can only hope that he gets what he deserves for not following the law," she said, her eyes staring straight at Steve with a seriousness that actually made him fidget a little, "as part of your release I am ordering you to undergo inpatient treatment at Kahi Mohala until further notice. Court is adjourned." 

With the slam of her gavel, the courtroom erupted into a bout of voices. Some were angry while others were confused. A few were happy that Steve was being released, but none of them knew that Steve's taped confession was being uploaded to the same blogging site that had outed the both Koji and Hiro Noshimuri.

"She was quick to get out of here," Stan commented once Jameson left the room and he made his way over to Danny and Steve, "think the board lit a fire under her?"

"Don't know and not really sure if I care. What I do know is that the big guy is getting antsy from all the people," the blonde told his friend while patting his client in the shoulder. He could feel the muscles stiffen underneath his palm and silently removed it from the other. 

Stan saw the interaction between the two of them and frowned slightly before he nodded his head and called the guards over to escort them to a quieter room until transport was ready to move McGarrett to the mental hospital. Those who had band together to help Steve could see that the turn of events was getting to him. 

He was happy to be out of prison, ecstatic even, but his OCD was pushing and pulling at his nerves. He needed to ground himself to something that he felt was clean and organized. When he couldn't think of anything right away, the former inmate closed his eyes as he was directed to a secluded room in the courthouse. They had to get him there before the press got to him and luckily the courthouse security was keeping all reporters at bay by the entrance of the building.

There were a few turns before Steve felt himself stopped and heard a door close. When he opened his eyes he was thankful to be in an empty room with only one other person inside of it. He allowed himself to focus on the blonde fireball as he ranted about something that Stan had said on their way to the room.

“-can you believe that? The guy wants to have some intern drive my car home? My car left with an intern!” Danny shouted, looking as though he was disgusted with the fact that someone was going to be driving his precious Camaro.

“He’s not your boss though, right?” Steve asked, “why is he having an intern drive your car home?”

At the innocent question, Danny faced Steve before going on about how the reporters would be following all of them around and that switching cars would be buying them time. He assured the former SEAL that he had the least to worry about because of the protective detail as well as the transportation he was getting from the courthouse to Kahi Mohala.

“It’s not me I’m worried about Danny,” Steve said as he sat himself on the edge of the table carefully, “what about Rachel and Grace? What about Mary? If my being free is going to cause a public frenzy then it’s safe to say that the are going to get some unwanted attention as well.”

“We know how to keep them safe. I promise that I will personally keep Mary safe,” the lawyer said, pressing his palms together as if praying while his piercing pale blue eyes stared deep into Steve’s hazel ones.

He knew that he could trust Danny. In fact, Danny was the only one that Steve really trusted. While Jameson had been a friend of his father’s, the former SEAL knew deep down that she wasn’t an innocent party. She was just as guilty as Noshimuri and Wo Fat.

As he fell deeper into thought, the Jersey native parted his hands and got closer to Steve. He couldn’t believe the guy was actually allowing himself to fall deeper into his own brain when he was finally out of prison. He should be celebrating his win, not letting his mind dwell on things he didn’t have to deal with anymore. As far as Danny was concerned, Steve’s political problems were over and Jameson was his problem now. All Steve had to worry about was dealing with his OCD and the blonde was planning to help him every step of the way.

*****

The trip from the courthouse to the hospital was quick and without much incident. Sure, there was the problem with the press and the minor incident with Danny shouting when one of the courthouse interns showed him the leaked video of Steve’s confession, but other than that, the former SEAL and his lawyer both transferred over to Kahi Mohala uneventfully.

“Gotta admit that I’m surprised you asked to have me transfer over with you,” Danny mumbled under his breath as the exited the vehicle and entered the facility from the backside. Since Judge Jameson had named the mental hospital that Steve was ordered to be treated at, the news stations were parked around front just waiting for the serial killer. It pissed Danny off how everyone wanted a damn story.

“It was either that or you end up arrested for punching a member of the press.”

“Oh, so now that you aren’t behind bars you think you’re a funny guy, is that it?” The blonde asked, looking over at the brunette who was sporting a little smug look on his face. Having not expected it, Danny stumbled slightly.

“Hey, hey, wait!” He shouted at Steve who stopped walking on command and dropped the smug look to one of concern, “don’t try and look innocent. What was that just now, huh? Why you looking like the cat that caught the canary?”

Hearing Danny’s question, Steve couldn’t help the slight smile on his face. It was true that the blonde seemed to calm him down from thinking of all the disorganized things. He chalked it up to the other simply understanding him because of Grace.

“Because it’s you. The whole ranting and fighting thing is what you do. It just took me getting out of Halawa to see it,” the brunette answered with a slight shrug.

The only type of reply he got from Danny was a silent “huh” before the blonde began walking off again. As he walked ahead of Steve and the two orderlies and guards that were guiding them, the former SEAL noticed that the lawyer walked with something he could only describe as swagger.

_This whole hospital thing might not be so bad._ He told himself inwardly as he moved to catch up to Danny, his long legs allowing him to close the distance without having to jog. He kept his pace even with the other’s after that while the orderlies walked ahead of them and the guards walked behind.

It wasn’t until after they walked up six flights of stairs that they went through an open door and walked down a corridor. It was quiet, but Steve felt more relaxed than he had in a long time. Things were organized and clean beyond what he had thought possible by anyone other than himself and the military.

“Mr. McGarrett, Mr. Williams, I’m glad you both made it. I was getting concerned by all the media mongrels that are standing around outside,” the young woman told the two as they approached her. 

She was a short woman or rather, she was short in comparison to Steve whereas she was tall enough to be eye to eye with Danny. Her shoulder length hair was tied into a ponytail and she smiled wide enough that her dimples were easily seen. With a quick glance to her name tag, both men saw that it read “Kalakaua”. However, it was only Danny who wondered if she was part of the Kelly/Kalakaua clan that Chin occasionally talked about.

“You should have seen it at the courthouse when Judge Jameson gave her ruling,” Danny muttered as he shoved a hand into his pocket and lifted the other to gesture with it, “A Rachel Edwards told me that she already filled out all the necessary paperwork for the big guy here. Is there anything I need to do?”

“Nope,” Kalakaua said with a softly laugh, “Everything has been taken care of in advance. The Judge even donated a large amount to the facility and towards McGarrett’s care.”

The new information, however innocent it may have seemed, had peeked Danny’s interest and his face showed as much as he glanced at Steve before putting all his attention on the woman in front of them.

“That was, uh, awfully nice of the Judge,” the blonde said, clearing his throat momentarily, “since I’m not needed I should probably go. I have to pick up Gracie and all.”

At hearing Danny say he had to pick up Grace, Steve turned all his attention onto the blonde like a puppy hearing that he was going to the park. While the dark haired woman laughed softly at the two, the blonde simply raised his brows and lifted his head to meet the other’s gaze.

“What? You want to see her? Why should I let you when you were looking all smug about my Jersey attitude?” Danny asked, moving around his hand while the other stayed lax in his pocket.

“Seeing her will motivate me to take my medication. C’mon Danny, she knows what it’s like and we understand how to play with each other.”

“You two weren’t playing when she visited you. There was talking. Lots and lots of talking.”

“Yeah, but now I can play with her,” Steve said, holding his head up as if he just one the argument of the year with his statement. 

He was telling the truth though the lawyer hated to admit it. Steve and Grace were close despite the single visit they had with each other. Between the OCD and their patterns, the two bonded more than Danny had thought was possible. It didn’t frighten him though. If anything it had comforted him knowing that both Steve and Grace had another person to support them. They had each other and Danny was sure that they could count on one another to assure them that things would be alright. It didn’t matter if the Jersey native was in both of their corners even for the darkest of rides.


	15. To Disappear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ah, bah bah! What is up with that face, huh? Are you about to have an aneurysm?” Danny asked, his eyebrows furrowing together as he waved his cane at Steve’s face.

There was something different about that day, but Steve had realized that he had begun to feel that way about every day that had come to be after his release from the prison. There were hurtful letters he read, but never replied to, people he encountered that were neither friendly not hostile. Most people were simply there, living and going through the motions as best they could. Steve was one of those people.

With his hazel eyes directed at the ceiling, the former SEAL took deep breaths to center himself. The medication was working, he could handle taking it as he had been for the last month, but it was the therapy that he was getting used to. His therapist, a Doctor Malia Waincroft was a good women, but she dug down deep and left nicks in his armor that showed him things about himself. 

"Ho brah, you looking ' a lil loko around da eyes," Kamekona commented as he came bustling over to the patient. The whale of a man was one of two orderlies that Steve associated with more so than anyone else. Between Kamekona and Kono, Steve had settled in without Danny just fine. 

Except he wasn't fine. Steve wasn't okay at all. He was worrying about Danny despite knowing the lawyer had to go back to New Jersey to help Mary with some legal trouble. He was told that it was nothing for him to worry about, but Steve felt useless. If he couldn't help then his mind suddenly went to worrying. He thought that he should probably bring that up with Malia during their next session. 

"I don't look loko. I'm just tired is all," Steve said, his voice slightly raspy, "what are you bustling around for. I thought you were all about flowing with the waves."

"Nah, I gotta hustle if I want to keep ahead of all you crazies. Supply and demand my bruddah."

"I'm not crazy and there is no supply and demand in a psych hospital," Steve commented tiredly, having recently accepted that Kamekona called all the patients crazy simply because it was easier for him. 

"You say dat now, but we both know it ain't true," the chubby native said, "you got a demand about visitors and I got the supply."

Closing his eyes, Steve pinched the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache coming on, "what are you talking about?" 

"What Shamu is trying to say is that is that you have a visitor, you Neanderthal,” the sudden voice said from behind the large sized hospital worker.

“Is that why you’re hiding behind Kamekona instead of just siting down?”

“The guy is very, uh, large. I could hide behind him even if I was near the door.”

“Hey, I’m right here,” Kamekona frowned as he fumbled out the way of the blonde’s way so that Steve could see him.

Sitting up straight in the chair, the dark haired man turned in the seat slightly to look over at his lawyer and friend. Danny looked good. He looked healthy and Steve felt as if he could take an actual breath of fresh air. Between being worried about Danny and his therapy sessions with Malia, Steve was unsure if he’d be able to feel the invisible weight lift off his shoulder even if only for a moment. He was about to get up and hug the blonde when his eyes flicked down to see the wooden cane he was carrying.

“Ah, bah bah! What is up with that face, huh? Are you about to have an aneurysm?” Danny asked, his eyebrows furrowing together as he waved his cane at Steve’s face.

“What face?”

“You’re aneurysm face.”

“Why do you have a cane?” Steve asked, deciding to drop the conversation about his face. It seemed that Danny had spent time actually categorizing the faces that he apparently made.

The question that the other asked caused Danny to blink and set his cane down properly before he leaned against it and stared at Steve. It was obvious that he wasn’t expecting the former SEAL to ask him that question, but then again he wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he decided to visit Steve. He wasn’t even really sure why he did a lot of things when it came to the dark haired patient that was looking at him for an answer. Sure, they had grown to be friends, but even he broke a few rules between lawyer and client.

_Shit, I’m in trouble._ Danny thought to himself as he recovered from the sudden question and moved to sit to the left of the other. He rested the cane against the table before leaning back in the seat and bringing up his hand to gesture his words as usual.

“I tore my ACL.”

“You tore your ACL?” Steve asked, his brows furrowing in what Danny called his constipated face.

“Yes, Steven, I tore my ACL. Would you like to see the x-rays?” Danny asked sarcastically, his hand motioning just as Steve always witnessed.

Instead of answering the blonde’s question, Steve looked over at Kamekona and asked him to leave so that he could talk to Danny in relative privacy. The orderly nodded his head and made his way over to help another patient while Steve looked over at Danny once again. They sat there staring at each other for a moment before they both leaned in with their elbows on the table.

“The medicine they have you on seems to be doing you some good,” the lawyer said as he looked Steve up and down, “you feeling alright?”

“They’re working as well as can be expected. I don’t have all the thoughts I used to,” Steve shrugged, “I keep my patterns and my organization, but I don’t have the urge to kill people because they aren’t like me.”

“So you aren’t homicidal. That’s a big improvement for an Army guy.”

“Navy,” Steve corrected as he pushed back slightly and leaned into the chair. 

Danny tilted his head from side to side and pulled back slightly as he mirrored Steve's posture. They stared at each other once again, but for a longer period of time as if they were silently communicating. It didn't take words for the blonde to tell his friend that things were alright with Mary. Hell, he probably figured as much when he heard Danny's voice. They both knew that the lawyer wouldn't have left New Jersey unless Mary was fine or Grace was in trouble. The latter wasn't the case because he doubted Danny would be at the hospital. 

"You really want to know about the cane, don't you?"

With a lazy, loose smile as an answer, Danny sighed and smoothed back his hair. He didn't really want to go into detail about his knee, but he knew that the chances of leaving without saying something were slim. 

"Alright, so I met up with my family while I was in Jersey. My dad and brother convinced me to play baseball a with a few of the guys from my old neighborhood. Long story short, I, uh, landed the wrong way when I slid for a base."

"You tore it while sliding to a base?" Steve asked with a raised brow. 

"The guy tripped me just as I was about to slide. He was trying to catch the ball," Dany shrugged. 

"And you punched him, didn't you?” The other asked with a smug look on his face as if he was proud of the fact that Danny had indeed punched the idiot that had played a part in tearing his ACL. His knee had hurt like a bitch, but he still managed to get up and clock the bastard.

With a faint chuckle and crinkle at the corners of his eyes, Danny looked away from Steve for a moment as he kept his amusement to a minimum. There was no way that the dark haired man knew him so well, but he did. Steve knew him pretty damn well and Danny didn’t even mind it. They were lawyer and client, but they were also friends. As long as there was no legal troubles, they were more friends than the former.

Seeing Danny with amusement on his face, Steve smiled faintly and crossed his arms in front of his chest. It felt good to be the reason behind someone’s smile rather than the cause of their fear. He could remember the fear that he had put through his victims and thought back to Stanley. He thought back to the first person who saw him as something other than a monster. He thought back to when he was on the ferris wheel with Stanley and how he was bleeding out with bread and saran wrap keeping what it could from making a mess of his own clothing.

As the former SEAL began to fall deeper into his own thoughts, Danny leaned over and tapped a heartbeat against the back of the other’s hand.

“You’re making that face again,” the blonde said as Steve slowly came out of his thoughts. He could see it in the way his hazel eyes cleared and seemed less clouded.

It took Steve another moment before telling his friend that he didn’t make faces and after that they continued to chat idly for a while longer before Danny stood to leave. He promised Steve that he’d be back sometime later in the week if work didn’t get to hectic and even talked about bringing Grace by to see him. It was the thought of knowing that he’d see Danny and Grace again that kept Steve from wanting to disappear.

*****

Wo Fat watched from across the street as Koji Noshumri’s car exploded into a fiery blaze. He sipped his tea and kept his eyes on the scene that unfolded before him. With people gathering around the fiery wreckage of the car, he kept himself calm while others began to call the first responders while others took pictures and video.

He didn’t feel bad about the explosion or Koji’s death. In fact, Koji deserved the end that he was given. His idiocy had put Wo Fat in a dangerous position and Hiro’s involvement was no better. They were loose ends that were going to get him caught and he couldn’t have that until after he got what he wanted, what he needed. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be caught until Shelbourne was in his grasp.

However, Koji and Hiro were not his only problem. He also had to deal with that damn lawyer that continued to find a way to keep his plans from furthering the way he originally wanted them to. There were too many times that Wo Fat had to stall his own plans because a certain Daniel Williams came and assured McGarrett that everything was alright. He kept putting faith in him and building him up whereas Wo Fat needed him to be torn down. He needed answers from him!

The more people that began to gather outside of the business establishment, the more Wo Fat felt that it was his time to leave. Setting down the empty cup, the almond eyed man stood from his seat with grace and paid for his drink before leaving just as quietly as he had first entered. He would get what he wanted. He would get Shelbourne even if it meant destroying people in the process.


	16. Goodbye My Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Listen to me, Danny. This was too easy. Something bigger is going on and I plan on coming back to help you," the former black ops man told the other who bit his tongue. It was obvious that the blonde was fueling up for a rant, but Elliot didn’t give him the time as he pulled him into a one armed hug before running off to catch his plane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, you cinnamon rolls! Here is the sixteenth chapter of The Criminal and The Lawyer. Sadly, I won't be able to upload as frequently for a while since I just got home from having surgery and the pain pills make me loopy. I will finish this story for all you lovely people, but it will take me a little more time than usual.

Danny stood to the side as Elliot shook Steve’s hand. After months of Elliot going back and forth from Hawaii to the mainland with Hardison and Parker, Danny had finally sat them down and told them to just leave. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy them being there, but there were more people that needed them. Danny’s own problems were at bay for the moment so he didn’t want to waste their time.

“Thank you for your help," Steve told the brunette that stood across from him, "you and your team helped me more than you can realize."

"Nah man, are whole thing blew sideways. We didn't catch Noshimuri or That creepy ass guard," Hardison said before Elliot had a chance to open his mouth. 

Seeing his former boxing buddy glare at the dark skinned man, Danny stepped in and smiled at the three who had helped him have one less thing to worry about. He thanked them for all their help before looking over to Kono and Chin who had helped him get Steve a chance to go to the airport to see off their newest set of comrades.

It had helped that they were in normal clothes and that Steve was doing well on his medication. They did have to go under Judge Jameson's nose a little bit, but Stan had helped slide past that. The D.A was actually turning out to be more of a help than any of them had thought possible. 

When goodbyes were said and they were being called to the gate, Elliot pulled the lawyer aside for a moment and stared into his ocean blue eyes. 

"I don't trust that things are going to calm down-"

"Elliot-"

"Listen to me, Danny. This was too easy. Something bigger is going on and I plan on coming back to help you," the former black ops man told the other who bit his tongue. It was obvious that the blonde was fueling up for a rant, but Elliot didn’t give him the time as he pulled him into a one armed hug before running off to catch his plane.

As the brunette ran off, Steve ambled over Danny just as Chin and Kono joined them. They watched the three other’s off in silence before turning to face each other. The lawyer and Chin were aware that they still had to deal with the judge, but they allowed themselves the moment they had to just breathe.

It was while the lawyer and guard were glancing at each other, the Steve took the moment to give his friend a once over. It wasn’t very often that he saw him wearing something other than a three piece suit so he took a mental picture of the man beside him. He looked good in civilian clothes and outside of the courthouse. In fact, the former SEAL was eighty percent sure that Grace was the one that talked her father into wearing something other than slacks and a tie to see off his old friends.

“Who’s up for some sight seeing since we’re already out?” Kong asked with a cheeky grin, causing all eyes to land on her as she clapped her hands together once.

“I’m game,” Steve said without hesitation. He knew that it was going to start a rant from the blonde, but he was looking forward to it. Oddly enough he felt a little smug at being able to rile the lawyer up so easily.

As if right on queue, Danny stood stalk straight and turned slightly to look up at the other. His hands were up and at the ready to start emphasizing his frustrations.

“Seriously? What, did you teach her how to be mischievous? I bet she was an innocent young orderly before we got you admitted. Now she’s talking about sight seeing. Sight seeing!” Danny said in his usually loud voice which caused a smile to form on Chin’s face and Kono to giggle.

“Relax, Danny, it’s just some sight seeing. I haven’t gotten a chance to look at much since my incarceration.”

“You are a free man, McGarrett. I don’t want to hear that damn word come out of your mouth after all the damn work I did to help you get out,” the blonde instructed which earned him a look from Steve, “and don’t even look at me like that. My opinion won’t change. We are not going sight seeing.”

Instead of any of them replying to Danny’s rant, they simply looked at him with expecting looks. It was obvious he was going to give in and if he didn’t then Kono definitely had ways of getting him to comply. However, Steve was the one that had the situation under control as he held up the keys to the blonde’s Camaro and smirked.

The ex-convict knew it was like playing with fire, but there was no way he could have not taken the keys off Danny’s person. It didn’t help that the gluten for punishment seemed to enjoy the various degrees of confusion and anger passed over Danny’s face. When the lawyer tried grabbing for the keys, Steve held them up out of his reach before tilting his head towards the exit.

“I’ll drive,” he told the shorter male as he turned and headed towards the exit with Kono on his heels. 

Danny didn’t mind how close the two had gotten, but his keys! Some knucklehead was actually going to drive his baby and he probably wasn’t even going to be able to take shotgun. He was smart enough to know that he wasn’t going to get the keys back just yet, but it didn’t stop him from openly fuming and ranting about it for the next five minutes as they walked past airport security on their way out. What made it worse was that Steve had decided to argue with him over the matter.

“Ladies,” Chin said ever so calmly, causing both men to stop just outside of the airport and look at the Hawaiian native, “we’re all going to be in the car. If he crashes it you can kill him since it’s a pretty fair assumption that he’d get pinned inside.”

“How is that fair?” Steve asked with clear confusion.

“Because you at least get to drive the car before Danny kills you, brah,” Kono chimed in with a crinkle eyed grin.

Both men seemed to think over the guard’s words before glancing at each other. It was clear that Danny still didn’t trust anyone behind the wheel of his car, but Steve wasn’t planning on handing over the keys until he absolutely had to.

“One scratch and I will go Jersey on your ass, hear me?” Danny said, poking the taller man in the chest and earning a smug smirk as a reply. The ex-convict seemed to do that after he got out of prison, but his goofy smiles didn’t start appearing until sometime after he got used to the medication they had him on to control his OCD.

Thinking about the disorder made the lawyer think of his little girl and when her next appointment was. Rachel had told him already, but he wasn’t sure if it was just counseling or to discuss her medication as well.

“Sure thing, Danny,” the hazel eyed man said with about as much conviction as a dead ferret. A Steve walked around the car and got in on the passenger’s side, Chin and Kono both settled for the backseat which left the blonde to sit shotgun with the overly attractive neanderthal.

Another word wasn’t spoken until Steve had decided to speed down the street as if he was some sort of maniac. As Danny grabbed the “oh shit” handle as the dark haired man took a hard left, the two passengers in the back seat made quick work of their seatbelts.

“Slow the hell down, Turbo!” The lawyer shouted at his friend who looked over at him as though he hadn’t understood the words that had come out of his mouth. Danny knew it was a bad idea to let Steve drive. It was an absolutely terrible idea and the blonde cringed as he thought about the beating that his tires were taking.

“C’mon, live a little! I haven’t driven a car in years,” the brunette told the other with that toothy grin that made his stupidly attractive face light up. Luckily, Danny wasn’t going to allow himself to fall for the charm and poked the taller man in the arm.

“You,” Danny growled, “need to learn how to drive. This. This is not driving; this is trying to see how fast you can go before crashing into something! Do you want to kill us or do you just miss being in prison that much already?”

The questions had caused Steve to slow the car down slightly, but it wasn’t until he heard the radio that the former SEAL slammed on the brake hard enough to jerk everyone. It was by a miracle that they had all had their seatbelts on and no serious damage from the sudden stop.

_Koji Nushimori, brother of the former warden and prison owner, Hiro Noshimori has been the identified victim in a fatal one car crash. The details are still underway, but sources say that the car had spun out of control before crashing into a light post and bursting into flames. There is no word yet on what caused the accident, but it is believed their is no fowl play._

The four of them sat in the car in total silence as they listened to the radio broadcasting of the news. It wasn’t something that Danny usually had playing in the car, but with Hiro having gone missing he was hoping to hear something. The only thing was that he never expected to hear about Koji’s untimely death.

While Chin let out a sigh and Kono a low whistle, Danny stared at the car stereo before glancing over at Steve when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The minute he had turned his head he could see the gears in the other’s head turning. They were on the verge of burning rubber when the blonde reached over and put a hand over Steve’s white knuckles. If it had been someone different, Danny would have shouted and threatened over gripping the wheel of the car so damn tight that he could feel the muscles jumping in constricted groups under his touch.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Steve said with his own eyes plastered to the radio. He gave it a look as though the person reporting in would have been able to see him and recant their earlier statement.

“Steve-“ Kono started from the backseat, having heard all about Steve’s mother and her own accident. She had also heard quite a bit about what had happened while the other was locked away. If the video on the internet was anything to go by, it had seemed that the former Lieutenant Commander had downplayed the experience more than anyone she ever knew.

Before she could finish her sentence, the lawyer had pulled himself away from Steve and got out of the car. Chin was the only one who bothered to pay any attention to him as he walked around to the driver’s side and yanked it open.

“Come on, McGarrett. Get your ass out the driver’s seat of my car,” Danny said, tugging at the other’s shirt as he tried to get him out of the car. In the spilt second that was there, Steve hadn’t gotten out the car and pulled the blonde’s arm up and behind his back. One quick move and he could have easily made his arm immobile.

Kong and Chin got out the car just as Danny cringed in pain, but didn’t step close to the two men just as Steve had ordered. They all knew that the ex-inmate had the ability to hurt someone, but the cousins were shocked to know that he’d turn that aggression onto Danny.

“I know you don’t care that you did that, but I will break your arm if you do it again,” Steve warned as he twisted Danny’s arm a little more before he let go after hearing the blonde’s groan.

In the moment that he was released from the other’s harsh grip, Danny swiveled on his feet and punched Steve in the jaw with such a force that the ex-inmate actually turned and had to grip the hood of the car to balance himself.

“You’re right, I don’t care,” he said, smoothing his hair back into place while Chin and Kono looked between themselves and the odd pair in front of them. They’d have been lying to themselves if they had said they weren’t more than a little interested in how the sudden violence between Danny and Steve had turned into a silent agreement with the lawyer taking control of his car again.


	17. Rumor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What if I wear to tell you that there is talk within the Navy to have you reinstated?” The young woman said as she was pushed out of the room. Her words had hit Steve similar to a freight train hitting someone at a thousand miles an hour. Her once cool covered shoulders were suddenly burning to the touch and the dark haired man pushed her away as though she was suddenly a hundred degrees hotter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keiki=Child

It was a few months before Chirstmas when Steve was jolted awake by the sound of his bedroom door opening. At first, he had thought it was Grace or Danny, but staring at the figure in the doorway had changed the former SEAL’s believes. It didn’t matter to him that it was probably a quarter past midnight when his sleep was interrupted.

“Steven McGarrett?” The woman’s voice asked from across the room. She hadn’t bothered to walk in any further and in fact, seemed to tense up when the dark haired man nodded his head in reply.

He kept his wits about him as he sat up on the bed and shook the last remnants fo sleep from his stiffening body. He didn’t trust the woman in front of him. For all he knew, she was sent by Wo Fat to kill him. If she wasn’t a hostile then she could have been sent by Danny due to the lateness of the visit.

“My name is Jenna Kaye. I’m one of the members from the American Bar Association that are currently going over the case files of a Judge Jameson,” she told the other, her eyes still shadowed by the hallway lights that shone behind her. 

All that Steve could really make out was that she was short, had short brown hair, and was wearing a suit over her small frame.If the man were to be honest, he thought she was more a child playing a big kids game rather than a lawyer. He didn’t want to trust her, but something told him that she was an ally.

“What do you want from me?” He asked, his hazel eyes sharp with focus as he stood to his full height and used it to tower over the other.

“You have information about the Noshimuri’s correct?”

“I have the same knowledge as my lawyer and the blogger who outed the warden of the prison I was sent to.”

“You have more information than that,” Jenna said as she stood stalk straight. It was adorable how she was trying to copy him.

Instead of giving her an answer, the patient kept a straight face. He grabbed her with both hands on her shoulders and watched as she flinched before he turned her around. “It is late, ma’am. Please try coming back at a more convenient time instead of waking up patients in the middle of the night.”

“What if I wear to tell you that there is talk within the Navy to have you reinstated?” The young woman said as she was pushed out of the room. Her words had hit Steve similar to a freight train hitting someone at a thousand miles an hour. Her once cool covered shoulders were suddenly burning to the touch and the dark haired man pushed her away as though she was suddenly a hundred degrees hotter.

He couldn’t believe her. He couldn’t believe the words that had come out of her mouth. He had killed people. He was a murderer and there was no way that the Navy would ever talk about taking him back into their fold. That part of his life was over and it had taken him a lot of time to get used to that fact. Even if she were telling the truth, Steve wasn’t sure if he’d allow himself to go back. He didn’t believe that he’d survive out their without Danny, Grace, or even the Kelly-Kalakaua cousins that had taken him under their wing and helped him control his OCD. He wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to handle his OCD without their help- without help in general.

“Goodnight, ma’am,” he said with a tight voice, his throat muscles feeling as though they were contracting and choking him with unknown emotions.

Before Jenna had the chance to turn and push her way back into Steve’s space, the door to his room was shut closed and his back pressed against it to keep her from entering once again. He wasn’t sure how long he had stood by the door before hearing her footsteps echo down the hall. When he finally pushed away from the door, he took slow, careful steps towards his bed. Of his own decision he hadn’t really spoken to Danny for the last few days. After the episode he had when his shirt was tugged at, they had switched back to their normal banter until it was too much for the former SEAL. He didn’t care that Danny had punched him. No, his reasoning was due to him being afraid of himself. If he was so ready to dislocate his best friend’s arm then what was to say he wouldn’t stop himself from potentially killing him? The Navy had trained him to kill after all.

As he laid back in bed, Steve stared at the ceiling with his jaw locked. His mind was running with so many due to Kaye’s visit that the dark haired man wasn’t even able to fall back asleep until just moments before his door was opened again and he was called out to take his medication with the rest of the patients. 

_I have to call Danny._ He thought to himself as he moved slowly down the hall. His movements were sluggish from lack of sleep and his eyes were looking as though they were starting to sink in. If it had just been the lack of sleep, he’d have been able to shake it off in seconds. He was trained to do just that, but with all those thoughts floating around in his head? With his inner demons trying to pry open memories that would count as fuel towards the fire that burned the brightest question of all: Why would the Navy reinstate him?

“Ho, Steve my man, you are looking worse for wear buddy,” the orderly in charge of dispensing medication had told him as he reached the front of the line, “was checking out the feed from earlier. Anything to do with the super short chick that came to visit you?”

“How did you get your hands on security footage?”

“You can ask, but I’m not gonna tell,” he said, handing the cup of water and pills to Steve before popping a lollipop into his mouth and staring at the slightly taller male.

“Danny came by, didn’t he?” The patient asked before he downed his pills along with the water. The blonde lawyer was about the only one that gave in to the orderly’s addiction to sweets since he had laid off the pot to keep the job at the hospital.

It wasn’t usual for Danny to show up at the hospital so early in the morning. Despite the guy being the worst at functioning on a good morning, he managed to get things done if he had enough caffeine flowing through his veins. It also helped when a certain little girl was jumping around as if it was Christmas morning.

“Always the super snoop,” he said, pulling the lollipop from his mouth and waving it at Steve, “he ain’t alone today. Keiki was practically vibrating. She looked pretty excited.”

At hearing that Danny had not only decided not to wait until Steve called before returning to visit him, the lawyer had also brought Grace with him of all people. His heart was feeling warmer and it was a wonder how his face was able to look so awake in so little time. The orderly, Adam opened his mouth to comment, but thought otherwise and went through the motions of making sure that Steve actually swallowed his medicine instead of simply hiding it somewhere in his mouth. Once the shaggy looking brunette was satisfied that the other was good, he pointed towards Kono who was walking their way with Kamekona. 

“Hey, boss man,” Kono greeted, having picked up the name for Steve a few weeks ago. She wasn’t sure what had lead her to the conclusion that the nickname suited the dark haired man, but it did. There wasn’t a nickname better suited for him as far as she was concerned.

“Mahalo” The former SEAL told Adam before walking out of the line and giving a faint tilt of the chin towards the two, “howzit?”

“Pretty good,” was Kamekono’s reply as he smacked Steve’s forearm with a grin. It wasn’t meant to be rough, but that didn’t stop the navy man from bracing himself for impact.

“Same as the big guy,” Kono grinned, “I came to bring you downstairs to the visiting area. Danny’s brought an extra visitor today.”

Steve nodded his head, wanting o appear calm though he was eighty percent sure that he was fist pumping internally because he got to see Danny and Grace. Though the young girl was almost thirteen, it didn’t stop him from feeling protective of her and wanting to know how she was doing. Just like her father, she found a way to brighten up a room with a mere smile or look. He wanted to help Danny keep the light the lawyer’s daughter had instead of exposing it to the darkest edges of the world.

_He took a chance exposing my chaos to her._ He thought silently as he followed Kono out of the lounge area of the third floor. The hallway was bustling with doctors, orderlies, and patients by the time they got to the elevator. It was always busy in the morning with the therapy, nightmares, showers, and medication calls.

As the elevator doors closed shut, Steve thought about how much the hospital had grown on him in such a short amount of time. It reminded him more of his time on Naval ships than anything, but their were times when it was simply quiet and controlled. Those were usually the moments he was in the elevator, but they were possible moments nonetheless. 

"Do you have any kids?" Kono asked as she watched the numbers start to tick downwards. 

"No, but I like to think I can help protect the one that means the most to me."

The confession caused the young woman to look over at Steve. She wasn't really sure what to say and when she finally thought of something it blew right out of her ears as the elevator stopped on the first floor. With a few seconds to recover, Kono shook herself off before walking out the elevator with the taller male. 

"Danny and Grace are right in the visiting center. I'll be around a little later to see if you guys need anything."

"Thanks, Kono," Steve said before walking in the direction of the front door of the building. 

The visiting center sat just a few feet away from the security post that everyone passed when they came and went from the hospital. The entrance of the area where Grace and Danny were waiting for the dark haired male was an open archway to keep anyone from closing themselves or others inside. Steve actually enjoyed the setup of the first floor. It made it easy for him to keep a look around his surroundings as well as see when his friend was visiting him. What he didn't know was that Danny liked the first floor for not only the same reasons, but also because the plexiglass walls of the visiting area made him feel less like he was in some type of box. 

"Uncle Steve!" Came a little girl's excited squeal when she looked through the glass wall and saw the familiar tall man with dark hair and beard. It had been des cussed before that if he were allowed to have a razor he would have shaved to a nice stubble. 

As the little girl got up and ran from the room to meet Steve halfway, Danny couldn't help himself from smiling at his little girl. She adored Steve more than anything other than her Danno and had begun adding "uncle" to the man's name after the second time she visited him in the hospital. He still laughed when he thought back to the face that the ex SEAL had made when he heard her. 

"Hey Gracie!" The dark haired man said with a toothy grin as he picked the little girl up as she was running towards him. It wasn't an easy feat since the girl ran as if she was going for a touchdown, but Steve managed each and every time. 

With a quick hug, Steve balanced her on his hip and carried her back towards the visiting area. Neither of them caring that she was a thirteen year old acting as though she were eight. They were both too busy talking about everything that had happened since her last visit. Grace told him about school and some kid named Tommy while Steve told her about the birthday party they had for one of the other patients and how two other patients were cleared to finally go home. 

The latter of that conversation was soon a regret since Grace began asking him when he was going to be released and go home. He had told her that he didn't have a home to go to and that he still needed a lot more help. Steve didn't tell her that he didn't trust himself to keep up with his medication and therapy outside the walls of the hospital. How could he when he hated admitting it to himself?

"You could live with Danno. You're his best friend," Grace said as if it she was describing how two plus two equaled four. 

"Monkey, you can't go offering my place to Steve like that," Danny commented just as they entered the visiting center. 

"Are you saying that you wouldn't want me living with you?" Steve asked with a smirk though inwardly he had to admit it hurt him a little to know Danny didn't want him around. The blonde obviously had good reasons if he didn't want Steve to stay at his place in the extremely off chance that he were to get released from the hospital. However, despite knowing how unsafe it was for Danny to be around him, the ex-convict was still a little hurt. 

"Now Steven, did I tell you that I didn't want you to move in with me if you were to somehow get released?" Danny asked with his brows high as if waiting for the other to make a giant fool of himself. It was clear that Steve had to pick his next words carefully. 

Setting Grace down, he sat across from the young girl's father and looked at him for a long moment. He wasn't really sure what to say and Danny's face was telling him that he was, yet again, making one of his legendary faces. 

"Uncle Steve, you have a constipated face," the little brunette commented as she came back over to the table with a chess set. Neither of the men were even aware that Grace had ditched them to go to the other side of the room to pick out a game. 

"I don't have a constipated face." Steve frowned slightly though he welcomed the young girl's distraction.

"Danno says that you do."

"Yeah, well Danno don't surf."

"Don't call me that and what in the world does that have to do with me labeling your faces?" Danny asked with a pinched look on his face as he tried to understand Steve's reasoning. 

"You don't surf so your opinion on my faces is null and void."

"That's bull! You can't go changing the rules like that," the blonde said before the two men began their back and forth banter while Grace set up the chess board. It was moments like this that made everything feel right in the world. It was the peace that Steve could use to forget all his troubles and worries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh, what a chapter! Yes, it is possible to get reinstated in the Navy, but in the real world there wouldn't even be talk about having a serial killer back in their ranks. Good thing this is fan fiction :D
> 
> Anything is possible, but I'm not going to let you little cinnamon rolls know what the future holds just yet ;)


	18. To Kneel on His Knees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just do it, Stan. My monkey needs a dad and Rachel needs you. You wanted a family well you got one and you better take care of them or I will haunt your ass,” the blonde threatened, his blue eyes staring at the taller man intensely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I admit to doing this one while doped up on pain killers due to my surgery. No, I regret nothing. Indeed, it is unbeta'd. Please love me, you beautiful cinnamon rolls.

Danny could have said that his day was going great. He could have said that it was one of the best days he’s had in the last couple of weeks. He was tempted to even get Kono to break Steve out of the hospital for a few hours despite that going against everything the lawyer was for. The thing about all this was that they were “could”s and “was”s. They weren’t things that he felt anymore. They weren’t temptations he was willing to indulge in. In fact, he was very much for not being tempted.

“Danny!” The blonde heard two voices shout his name in unison and he groaned inwardly. He would have moved, but that was obviously not an option. He didn’t really have many options outside of kneeling on the pavement with his bad knee throbbing like a sonofabitch.

“Stay away!” The lawyer shouted at the two men that were running to his aid. Even from where they were, they could see the collar around his neck and made sure to stay clear of it as they stopped in front of their friend.

While both men were usually known for keeping calm in situations like the one they were currently in, Chin and Elliot both had concerned looks on their faces that they couldn’t hide as Danny looked up at them from where he was kneeling. Danny was loud and didn’t have much of a filter, but he was someone that they had gotten used to being around. They couldn’t lose him. Not like this.

“Danny!”

“Who the fuck allowed him here?” Danny asked with anger in his voice. He was tempted to start shouting again, but he was pretty sure that he would end up moving and none of that would have been a good idea.

As Stan came up to meet the three men, he kept his eyes on the blonde the entire time. He hadn’t even known what was going on when he pulled up a few blocks away from the courthouse. He had heard something about a bomb threat, but to see that it was Danny made it all the harder to believe it.

When he didn’t get an answer from Chin or Elliot, the blonde closed his eyes and counted to ten. He had to stay calm. The minute he flew off the handle and started moving around was the minute that his head was going to blow right off his body. It sounded pretty bad and it was since Danny had come to really enjoy having his head and neck attached to the rest of his body.

“How did this happen?”

“Get out of here. You guys will die without a question if this thing goes off.”

“Then I guess we’ll all end up dead,” Elliot replied as he knelt down in front of Danny and examined the neckwear. It was definitely high end and getting it off wasn’t going to happen unless they could disarm it first.

While Elliot looked at the bomb with an eye for detail that Danny had only seen Steve use, the lawyer glanced up at Stan who looked determined to stay and nervous at the same time. Danny didn’t blame him for feeling like that, hell, he felt the same way. The only difference was that if the blonde decided to move then a good twelve blocks of Oahu would go down with him. That included everyone who thought that they were safe behind the barricades.

“Go get Grace from school and bring her to the beach with Rachel and Charlie,” Danny said to the D.A. “She’s been wanting to learn how to surf. Maybe Kono from the hospital can teach her. They get along real well. A couple of troublemakers in disguise, I swear.”

“Dan—“

“Just do it, Stan. My monkey needs a dad and Rachel needs you. You wanted a family well you got one and you better take care of them or I will haunt your ass,” the blonde threatened, his blue eyes staring at the taller man intensely.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t want to leave Danny behind to deal with the possibility of dying. Sure, the guy had Elliot and Chin, but Stan was his friend too. He wanted to be there instead of feeling as though he was running away. He wanted to be of some help and he wasn’t really sure how he could be.

As he slowly walked away with Chin guiding him to what they thought was a safe zone, the D.A looked at the Hawaiian native who seemed just as troubled as he was. He was just about to speak when the shrill of a cellphone rang in their ears. Turning around, he watched Elliot pull the small device from the breast pocket of Danny’s shirt and flick it open to answer the call.

“I’m going to take a shot in the dark and say that we’ve never had the pleasure of meeting before,” the Irish brogue sounded from the other end of the call. Danny didn’t have to hear the voice to know who it was as Elliot rose to his feet and scanned the crowds for someone who seemed to be the culprit.

“I’m not stupid enough to be there,” the man on the other end of the call said with a hint of amusement in his voice, “But then again you don’t seem very bright. I’ve been watching you. Or rather, I’ve been watching your friend, Danny.”

“What do you want?”

“I want my brother back.”

“I’m guessing that isn’t possible,” Elliot said as he looked over at Danny for a second.

When he didn’t get a reply on the other end of the call, the brunette was about to hang up before hearing an audible crack. Whatever the other was doing didn’t seem to be a good thing.

“You have three hours to bring D.A Edwards. If I don’t receive him then Daniel dies. I’ll text you the address.”

With that, the phone clicked and Elliot listened to the dial tone for a a moment. How was he supposed to do that? How was he going to give Stan to whoever the hell strapped a bomb to Danny? The chances of Grace killing him were higher than if he were to lose what was let of his sanity to Parker.

“I’m going to get you out of this, Danny. Trust me on that,” the brunette told his friend, not looking him in the eye as he walked over to where Chin and Stan were standing. He asked the Hawaiian native to stay with Danny and took Stan with him towards his car.

“What’s going on?” Stan asked in a voice above a whisper, not wanting too many people to hear them. He had learned a long time ago that anything can be used as fuel for a fire.

“The guy that did this to Danny…he wants me to bring you to him,” he said with his teeth clenched together. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like feeling as though he was being pushed into a corner. He was former black-ops. He was a hitter. He shouldn’t be at the mercy of some Irish asshole who was using other people to get what he wanted. Hell, Hardison was less of a coward!

“Then bring me to him.”

*****

“This is not a good idea,” Elliot said with his own version of an aneurysm face as he drove the beat up truck down the dirt path.

“You can’t exactly turn around and drop me back off at the hospital, Elliot,” Steve commented from the bed of the truck as he assembled the rifle.

“He’s right, you can’t exactly turn the car around,” Stan sided with Steve as he fixed his suit jacket. He was wearing a bullet proof vest underneath his dress shirt, but was a little worried that the Irish man would notice.

With the vote being two against one, the blue eyed man stayed silent as he slowed the truck down just enough for the former SEAL to roll out of the bed and into the large bushes undetected. He wasn’t too fond of the idea of Steve having a gun, but he didn’t have many other people he could rely on at the last minute to help him pull off a job like this. It also didn’t help that most of the guys he trusted were on the mainland instead of Hawaii.

“We can do this,” Stan assured Elliot as they drove the rest of the way down the side of the mound before stopping the car across from from the one already parked. 

Another word was not spoken between the two men as they stepped out of the car and rounded the front. They both looked serious, but it was Stan’s surprised voice that had set off the next chain of events.

“Victor Hesse,” the D.A. spoke, his voice holding the surprise while he kept his face as neutral as possible, “aren’t you supposed to be serving consecutive life sentences at a correctional facility on the mainland?”

“Well, D.A Edwards, I didn’t like it there too much so I took a break. You’d imagine my surprise when I found out that my dear brother was dead.”

“That was almost five years ago, Victor. It happened in a prison riot. Why are you doing this now?”

“I’ll be doing the talking,” Victor said, waving his hand in the air to show them that his finger was just inches away from the detonator that would surely kill Danny.

Since none of them other than Victor wanted Danny dead, Elliot and Stan held their hands up in an act of surrender and took a step back. They were playing right into the convict’s hand. They were puppets in his game and there wasn’t much they could do about it. They were weak to stop him without getting Danny and a good amount of Hawaiian citizens killed in the process.

Between the former Black Ops and the ex-SEAL, Elliot had Steve beat on the homefront. They both knew that Steve had his problems, but Elliot? Elliot was supposed to be better than this. He wasn’t supposed to let himself be played into other people’s hands. He played crooks for a living not the other way around! He didn’t move to Hawaii just so that he could see Danny die. No, he moved there so that he could help Danny take care of his problems while Hardison and Parker took a trip to god knew where for a much needed vacation.

“I already killed the man that was originally hired to take on my brother’s case,” Victor started, “I wasn’t the only one who wanted him dead. Apparently, he was getting too close to a very hot flame. Just. Like. You.”

It was with those three final words that Victor squeezed the trigger of the gun in his opposite hand. In a flurry of stunned silence, they watched as Stan fell to the ground in a lifeless heap. Steve wanted to take the shot while he had a chance, while it was clear and the wind was in his favor, but Elliot decided on the hands on approach instead of giving him the signal to fire. 

With the barrel hidden just as much as he was, the former SEAL watched as Elliot and Victor fought, as the gun was thrown from his hand and the detonator was being held onto firmly by both men. He wasn’t sure what Stan’s condition was, and he wasn’t sure that he really cared as he watched Danny’s friend and the man who tried to kill him battle for dominance. He wanted to take the shot, but he could hear Danny’s voice in his head telling him that he’d be stupid to do just that. That if he were to take the shot there was a possibility he’d kill Elliot and that just wasn’t up for debate.

As he took a deep breath to calm himself, Steve pointed the scope in Stan’s direction and saw that the D.A was very much alive thanks to the bullet proof vest they fitted him with after they busted Steve from the hospital. With the brunette looking as though he could have been worse for wear, Steve moved the scope back to look at the fight just in time to see Elliot unarm the detonator before punching Victor several times.

“Call the cops and let’s go check on Danny,” Stan groaned as he shouted across the way to Elliot.

“I should kill’em.”

“If you do that I won’t be able to get you out of a murder charge.”

“Give me your phone. I need to know Danny’s alright,” Steve’s voice sounded as he ran down the side of the mound to meet them by the car.

Both men exchanged a glance before the blue eyed hitter grabbed his phone out of his pocket and handed it to the other. The look on his face was hopeful, but none of them knew what the outcome really was on the other side of Oahu. They weren’t sure if they were able to stop it or if Victor had managed to plant a secondary charge somewhere on Danny that they hadn’t seen the first time around. The worst part outside of Victor having them in the palm of his hand was the not knowing of Danny’s safety and that of Hawaii’s.

Steve had to wait for the longest four rings of his life after he dialed Chin’s number before he got an answer. “Is Danny...?” he spoke into the phone. Hope and ear filling his voice at the same time. He heard a soft chuckle and then something in the background as the phone exchanged hands.

“I’m here you big, oaf. Now get your ass over here. I want to talk to the three of you knuckleheads,” the lawyer said from the other end of the call. He sounded pissed and relieved that they were okay and Steve wouldn’t have had it any other way.


	19. These Letters Are Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny has been keeping a secret for the past four years. What will happen when the one person he wanted to protect finally finds out?

“Is this all of them?”

“Yeah.”

“And he doesn’t know you’re handing them to me?”

Kong gave Danny a look that told him he should know better than to think so little of her skills before shoving the box into his waiting hands. Two days worth of hate mail and death threats that belonged to one Steven J. McGarrett. Since the release of the confession video, the letters weren’t as hostile, but the blonde didn’t want to take any chances. How could he when Steve was getting better?

The internal conflict that Danny faced was on a high scale, higher than the Seattle Space Needle. He had every right to hide the mail from his client, but it didn’t mean that it was right on a morale stance. Steve had the right to read his mail, had the right to know what the people out there thought of him even if he was smart enough to have already figured it out. Neither of them were blind to the looks they had received at the airport a while back when they saw Parker and the gang off.

The hatred, the fear, the pity.

It was all there. Each emotion was on display because each person knew about them. They knew that Danny was his Jersey native lawyer that got him off on a technicality. They knew that Steve was a serial killer that was tried for all of his murders right in Hawaii. Hell, they knew how the confession was gotten thanks to some ass who decided to find a way to upload it to some blog shortly after the release on a technicality was handed down.

There was never going to be another trial on the matter. The victims’ families were never going to be able to sue the State of Hawaii or the D.A. They couldn’t take legal action because there was no legal action that could be taken that wasn’t already. All the stops had been pulled years ago, the families opting out of civil cases due to the original ruling and now Steve McGarrett was a free man with so much baggage attached to his back that Danny was surprised the guy could still stand up as straight as an ox.

The blonde didn’t think about visiting Steve that day. He didn’t want to see him just yet. Between carrying away the letters that he would undoubtedly read while sipping at a LongBoard and still being tense after the pretty piece of work that Victor had put around his neck, Danny wasn’t really in the mood to be strong in front of Steve. He was hardly in the mood to sound strong when his baby girl had called him on the phone the night before.

He wouldn’t have said that he was a wreck, but he was aiming for it. He was close to getting there, but something was stopping him. Maybe it was Meka from beyond the grave or perhaps Steve and Grace with their puppy dog eyes.

“Danny!”

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit! Danny inhaled a sharp breath as he heard Steve call his name. He was so close to the exit and yet so far away. He couldn’t bail out because then he’d have to deal with McGarrett’s aneurism face and as funny as it was to look at, it wasn’t something that the blonde particularly liked being directed at him. With no way to effectively escape his friend and client, Danny slowly turned to face the six foot something giant pain in the ass as he strode towards him.

The smile on Steve’s face obviously meant that he was having one of his better days and Danny knew it was about to get blown to shit. He took another deep breath and held the box firmly in his hands as he looked up at the other. Did he have to look so good with facial hair? When the hell were they going to let him shave it all off so he could look less like some overly attractive neanderthal?

“Hey, Steve. What are you doing by the visiting center?” He asked with a bright smile that seemed a little too forced.

“Malia thought it’d be a good idea to stretch my legs around parts of the building. I’m not restricted to the third floor anymore.”

“So they counted the visiting center as being too far?”

“You know what I mean,” Steve told the blonde with a lazy grin before his eyes glanced further down and he noticed the box of papers.

The smile on Steve’s face faded all too quickly for Danny’s liking and he took a step back. It wasn’t a big step, but the other still noticed and followed that step. His eyes were still on the box. They were glued to the box just as Danny’s fingers were and it was a matter of time before everything shattered around them. He didn’t want this. Danny didn’t want to ruin everything that had taken years to build up. He didn’t want to destroy the Steve that had been pulled from the dark, dark depths of despair and agony, the man who couldn’t get through the day until things were scrubbed down with a tooth brush and down by multiple of two, the man who no longer allowed his OCD to rule his life the way it had so many years ago.

“Danny,” the dark haired man spoke in a controlled voice, his features unreadable to even the lawyer, “what are all those letter?”

“Steve-“

“Tell me.”

The blonde took a sharp breath in and held his ground. He was a Williams and Williams’ never backed down. Thy looked people in the eye and continuously kept at it. They were fighters to the end so Danny wasn’t going to turn tail and run. He was going to face Steve with the truth and then he was going to keep him from falling back into his old ways where even the former SEAL was afraid of himself.

“They’re hate mail and death threats,” Danny answered, “from the last two days.”

“There’s more isn’t there?”

“Four years worth packed in my garage.”

He couldn’t lie to Steve. Not about the letters. Not anymore. Not when the evidence was right in front of him. The secret was out and there was no turning back. Danny didn’t want to turn back. Steve needed to know. He was a big boy even if the blonde had tried to keep him sheltered.

_Talk about some character development._ Danny thought to himself as he continued to stare at the other.

“I want to read them.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to read them,” Steve repeated, his eyes flicking back up to look into Danny’s ocean blue ones, “we’ll start with this box and then move on to the others.”

“Seriously? And then what? You want to reply to all the ones that have an address on them?” Danny asked, not being serious about the last question.

“Exactly,” was all Steve said before he took the box from his friend’s grip and turned on his heel to head to the empty visiting center.

Watching the tall brunette walk away as if they had just had a small conversation that lead to coffee and doughnuts, the blonde couldn’t quite wrap his head around what was going through Steve’s mind. Hell, he wasn’t even sure where to start when it came to what was going on inside that guy’s mind. It was knowing that there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was going to win the battle no matter how much arm waving and yelling he did, Danny smoothed back his hair before heading in after Steve.

“We’ll go through a fourth of it now. Some of the stuff these people write requires a drink afterwards and I am not about to try and smuggle any into this place,” Danny said, naming his only rule just as Steve carefully opened the first letter.

“Fine, but you have to send my replies off. Alright?”

“Deal.”


	20. She Lost Herself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Two, four, eight, sixteen!” She shouted as she kicked and wiggled in the blonde’s grip. He wasn’t letting go. She wanted him to just let go. What was so hard about letting go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a filler chapter, but please feel free to read it. In fact, you might want to read it. I apologize in advance if this is a "trigger" chapter.

Two, four, eight.

What happened to six?

_Skip six. Can’t do six._

Her mind was unraveling, spinning out of control as the numbers wove by in her head. She was skipping and counting them. They had to be patterns of two. They could involve threes or sixes or any other number unless two could go into it.

_So many numbers. Patterns aren’t making sense!_

She sat in the corner with her hands pulling at her hair. Her parents tried to calm her, but it seemed like nothing worked. They couldn’t do anything. Why had the pills stopped working? Why had she fallen into such a disarray? When had the pills stopped working.

_Two, four, eight. Not six. Six doesn’t fit. Sixteen fits. It works._

“Gracie? Grace, babe, you gotta listen to me,” Danny tried to get through to his little girl. He had to get through. She had never been so far gone, so out of control with her patterns. It had to be something more than just her OCD. It couldn’t just be her compulsion.

Batting away her father’s hands, she stood and began to pace. Two going one way and then two going the next before she allowed herself to move, allowed herself the ability to go somewhere else and organize. She had to organize.

_Two, four, eight, sixteen._

She wasn’t able to calm down. She slammed doors in a pattern, but it wasn’t calming her. Nothing was calming her! Danny felt sick to his stomach that his monkey was going through this. He could see it in her eyes that she couldn’t stop herself and he knew that he needed to help her.

Looking over his shoulder at Rachel, he told her to get the car ready while he grabbed Grace. It wasn’t going to be pretty. The first time she got bad it was a nightmare, but this was different. It was so much different that it borderline on a level that Danny knew only Steve had walked on. That level was catastrophic and almost killed the man. Danny wasn’t about to let his little girl go there.

He took deep breaths and readied himself. He knew that his head would be pounding with a headache and his knee would buckle on him in no time, but he had to do it. He needed to do it for his little girl. There was no turning back.

He through caution to the wind and went straight to Grace’s room. He opened up her door without so much as a knock and wrapped his arms around the little girl from whatever angle he could get her at. She screamed and she kicked, but he didn’t let her go as he pulled her from the room. She was in the middle of making her bed for the second time and as he wrestled her away, the bed came undone just like her mind was slowly doing.

The screams were the worst part. They ran down his spine and made his heart jam in his chest because he felt- no, he knew that she was screaming because of him. She was screaming intangible things because he was pulling her from her pattern, the neatness that she had created.

“Two, four, eight, sixteen!” She shouted as she kicked and wiggled in the blonde’s grip. He wasn’t letting go. She wanted him to just let go. What was so hard about letting go?

Getting her out the house was murder, but getting her into the backseat of the car without hurting her was something entirely different. He continued to hold onto grace as Rachel drove them to the mental hospital. They had to get her admitted. She needed the help that they could give her.

It was about halfway there that all the fire and energy finally ran out of the twelve year old girl. As if a switch had gone off, her tantrum stopped and the two adults were greeted by a sudden silence. If it wasn’t for the rising and falling of Grace’s chest, Danny would have been worried out of his mind more than he already was. 

“It’s alright, baby. You’re gonna be fine,” he whispered, brushing her hair back and kissing the young girl’s forehead.

*****

Three hours. Three hours had gone by since Danny and Rachel got Grace admitted into Kahi Mohala. She was on the fifth floor and Steve was on the third, but Rachel was pacing back and forth. She didn’t know where to go or what to think. Danny, despite wanting nothing more than to be at the hospital, had to go to work because of something urgent.

“Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace,” Rachel chanted as she sat down in one of the plastic chairs down on the first floor. She wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t know where she went wrong. Her little girl had been doing so well and then the sudden plummet. Oh god, the plummet that she had taken.

Taking a deep breath, Rachel wiped her face her face clear of the tears and blinked a few times before looking up at the ceiling. She didn’t pray, but she wanted, no, needed for Grace to be okay. She wanted her little girl to get better. She didn’t want her to suffer with her OCD. With Grace…with Grace, she had never imagined that it could have gotten so bad.

“Do you mind some company?”

Looking over towards the voice that had sounded near the door, the brunette saw a woman that she had noticed before. She worked there. Rachel had spoken to her a few times and as she looked at the woman with two drinks in her hand, the name suddenly hit her.

“Malia, right? You’re dating Danny’s friend? The guard?”

“I used to, yes,” Malia said, her eyes looking sad for a moment before she walked further into the visiting center.

Rachel watched as the doctor sat beside her and inhaled a soft breath. She watched as Malia pushed a cup of coffee in her direction and then the two women sat in silence fore what seemed like ever. Neither of them knew what to really say. Was there anything that could have been said? What do you tell a woman whose daughter had a mental breakdown at nine in the morning? What words are there to assure her that everything is going to be okay when you aren’t even sure where the problem originated from?

“How is Steve doing?” Rachel asked, breaking the silence by asking about the one man who probably understood what her daughter was going through. There mental breakdowns may have varied, but the fear of what was happening, of not understanding or being able to contain themselves? That was something that they shared.

“He’s doing pretty good. The medication we have him on, Clomipramine seems to be working alongside his behavior therapy,” Malia said with a small nod.

“That’s good,” Rachel replied before a tight smile pulled at her face, “it’s good that he got the help he needed. Danny was- is his anchor, but he needed more and now he’s got it. He got help.”

“Rachel, we’re going to help Grace every way we can. She’s going to get better.”

There was a nod and then Rachel broke down. She broke down into tears and Malia wrapped her arms around her to keep her from falling. There wasn’t much else she could do. All they could do was wait no matter how horrible of a gap of time there was. When Grace woke up they would start her on medication and start therapy, but she wasn’t going to leave the hospital. Danny and Rachel had already decided that Grace’s stay was what was best until they knew their little girl wouldn’t be afraid of herself anymore.


	21. Never alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve tries to comfort Grace.

Rachel wasn't there when she woke up, but it was okay. She knew that her mom had work. She knew that her mother would have stayed if her work didn’t call her away. The same went for Stan and Danny. Except Danny had finally made it back from his work. He went straight from the office to his little girl’s side. He sat there and watched over her as if he was the teddy bear that was going to keep all the bad things away.

He had fallen asleep though. His body wouldn’t let him stay up any longer and Grace didn’t want to see her father with bags under his eyes. She didn’t want to feel as though she was the reason for the bags under his eyes. She had seen those puffy dark spots forming for the past two weeks.

_Two weeks._

She had been stuck in that hospital for two weeks, all three of the adults in her life seemed to think of her room as a home more than the actual residences that they resided within. Grace wasn’t sure what to think about the continual rotation of parents. Sometimes she’d get two of them, but usually it was just one of them. Each of them held concern in their eyes, worry that she’d flip out again. She wasn’t going to though. She was better. She felt better. 

“He’s asleep already?”

Grace turned her attention to the door and looked at Steve. He was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed in front of his chest. His ugly green uniform made him look weird in the lighting, but Grace was pretty sure all the patients looked weird in the lighting. She nodded her head at his question before scooting over on the bed slightly.

It wasn’t like the hospital beds, no, it was a real, twin sized bed in a small room that held just enough to make it feel a little less like a prison. As Steve wandered inside, Grace thought that she didn’t have just three adults in her life, but four. She had Rachel, Danno, Step-Stan, and Uncle Steve. They were the four main people in her life. They understood what she was going through on different levels, but it was her Uncle Steve that understood the most. He had seen the dark place that she ended up in.

“How are you feeling today?” He asked her as he climbed onto the bed gingerly and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

It had taken months for Steve to get so close to Grace. It wasn’t because she was afraid of him, but because he was afraid of himself. He didn’t trust himself to not fall into the dark parts, but he had a grounding point just like Grace had. They were sharing Danny and it paid off because the two brunettes were thick as thieves. They were like family to one another and now that Grace had been to her dark side, they were closer than ever.

“The medicine is working,” she told the other before furrowing her brows in concentration. The way her lips pushed together reminded Steve of Rachel, but it was the way she used her hands that made him see how much she was like the blonde that was asleep in the chair by the bed.

“I know that face. What are you thinking about?”

“My medicine before was working fine. Why did it just stop? Why did I have to fall so hard?” She asked innocently before looking up at Steve.

He was at a loss for words. It really wasn’t his area of expertise. He usually left all the talking to someone else, but Grace was asking him so he tried to piece together an answer. He had to try to give her something even if it wasn’t hope. Catherine had once tried to tell him that he couldn’t erase all the dirt in the world, but he hadn’t listened. Maybe if Grace knew that sometimes things just fall out of control she would understand better than he once had.

“When I was first caught, I was a mess. I shouted and screamed for hours on end because I felt as though nothing was clean. My patterns were being broken and I couldn’t fix them because I was strapped down to a hospital bed,” Steve told the young girl, unsure if Danny would have approved of the conversation, “they didn’t try and help me. Not really. What they wanted was to keep me alive long enough to put me away, to convict me of all the things I had done wrong.”

“You mean to get justice for all the people you killed?”

God, she knew her stuff.

“Yes, to get justice for them. The reason why I’m out is because the lead officer who got my confession had gone about it the wrong way. It took a lot of time, but I got out because he didn’t follow the rules that would have kept me locked away.”

“You didn’t deserve to be put in prison. You needed a hospital. You needed to get help for what was happening in your brain. If you had the right help from the beginning then you wouldn’t have killed all those people, Uncle Steve. I know you wouldn’t have.”

Hearing Grace say it made Steve’s heart tighten. She was the second person to feel that away about him. She was the second person to not think he would have killed if only he had been able to manage his condition. Maybe if he had met her and Danny earlier in life then none of those bad things would have happened. It was possible that he would have been happy without so much baggage weighing him down.

“Forget about me for a moment,” he said, taking Grace’s hands into his own and looking at the little brunette, “what I’m saying is that sometimes things happen. Sometimes we just fall and it takes a certain someone to help us get back up. We both fell very hard, but the good thing is that you didn’t hurt anyone. You might have bad days, but you won’t hurt people the way I did, Grace. You have people in your corner that I didn’t have in mind. You have people that know how to handle things like what we go through even if they don’t go though them.”

She listened to Steve’s words. At first she wasn’t sure what to really think of them. Was he trying to make her feel better? Was e simply rambling because he hadn’t been getting much sleep for the past couple of nights? Grace couldn’t this of a time where the other had said so much. Usually he kept his talking short and let other people fill in the conversation. She noticed that about him, noticed that he preferred the more silent route while others continued to go on and on with their words. His banter with her dad was a great example of that.

“Are you just trying to make me feel better?” She couldn’t exactly stop herself from asking as her face gave that confused look that Danny’s usually did when he was trying to gauge how stupid someone was.

“No, I’m telling you this because I wish I had someone to tell me this when I first started getting really bad,” Steve told her honestly just as Danny began to stir in his sleep.

Grace seemed to contemplate his words for a moment before smiling at the tall brunette. Without a warning, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close only to have him return the hug. It wasn’t exactly a pep talk, or hope, or motivation that he had given her, but something else. He gave her the idea that not everything was going to be perfect. He let her know that not all of her days were going to be routine and perfect. She was going to fall again just like Steve had fallen plant of times. The only difference was that they could both be picked up. He let her know that she wasn’t alone in the dark or in the light. She wasn’t alone.


	22. I know, Uncle Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace and Steve have another talk, but this time it's not quite what the former SEAL had in mind.

Steve watched from the other side of the room as Danny and Grace played with her dolphin trainer barbie. He knew that Danny was a good dad, but seeing him in action while he sat on the sidelines was something special. It gave him a whole other view.

“He’s so good with her, isn’t he?” Rachel asked, her voice causing the former SEAL to jump slightly in surprise. It wasn’t often that someone got the jump on him, but he guessed that he was pretty focused on the blonde and his daughter.

“Well he’s her dad so…”

“You know what I mean,” she said, her British voice sounding clip for a moment thought there was a hint of a smile in there somewhere.

Without saying another word, Steve gave his lazy grin and continued to stare at the two just a little while longer. Their observations were cut short when Grace had called both brunettes over to join them. At first they had both tried to object, wanting Danny to spend as much time as he could with the little girl. It wasn’t as if she was dying, but due to his latest case it had become increasingly difficult for him to spend time with Grace.

After a little convincing though, Steve had become susceptible to the charm of both Williams’ and decided to join them in their games. He wasn’t sure how long they ended up playing, going from one game to another with the occasional stops for hidden snacks and small talks. Things between the three of them were content and so was Rachel as she watched them interact with each other.

Rachel had to run an errand a few hours into observing the two men playing with Grace and Danny got up to see her out. It wasn’t much, but he was as much a gentleman as he was a good father. It may have also helped that Grace had given him a look that told him he had to take a walk with the woman or else.

“What was with the look you gave him?” Steve asked, having caught the girl in the act, but only saying something once they were alone.

“I wanted to ask you a question.”

Hearing that Grace had wanted to ask him a question without either of her parents within listening range had put Steve on guard. He wasn’t sure what the young girl was going to ask or if it was even something she should be asking him. He already had a mental list of all the questions he would definitely not answer even if she did pull out the puppy dog eyes. He trained for moments like that…or at least he tried since meeting Grace.

“What do you want to ask?” He questioned, tapping a Ken doll against the floor to the pattern of four as he played off his potential worrying as nothing more than a relaxed state. Just because his medication helped him control his OCD it didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to stop playing with his patterns. Those had been with him for too long to just suddenly go away.

“Do you like Danno?”

“Of course I do. We’re friends and my lawyer, remember?”

“Uncle Steve,” Grace whined, her face showing with exasperation that she knew Steve knew what she had meant by her question. She had been wondering for weeks about how the two men felt about each other. Since her admittance to the Kahi Mohala, she had seen how often both men looked at each other and how they both cared about her. She knew Danny didn’t trust too many people to be close to her the way Step-Stan was so it definitely meant something that her father would allow Steve the same closeness.

As she waited for an answer from the man sitting across from her, Grace tilted her head slightly to the side and pictured what the two men would look like together. There would definitely be bickering, but it was something beyond that. There was a word for it and she knew it well because Danny and Rachel used to hold that word as if it were a lifeline. She knew that her father held that word for her with the same meaning though maybe not quite in the same way.

While the former SEAL continued to stay silent as if searching for the right words to say, Grace took it upon herself to begin putting the toys away. She wasn’t board with the brunette keeping her company, but she didn’t want to play with toys anymore and her butt was starting to fall asleep from sitting on the floor for so long. She didn’t care that they had breaks, that floor needed to be redone with some type of fluffy carpet.

“I do like Danny. I have for a long time,” he finally confessed just as the man in question was heading back into the room. When the blonde heard Steve speak, he hid behind the wall before either of them could spot him. He knew eavesdropping was wrong, but what could he say? He had to keep busy since yelling wasn’t allowed in the hospital unless a patient was having a breakdown.

“Then why haven’t you said anything to him?”

“Grace, it’s difficult to explain. You shouldn’t be worried about it.”

“Christmas is two months away. Just tell me as an early gift,” the young girl shrugged her shoulders and looked at the other expectantly. Just like her father, she wasn’t going to simply give up just because someone wanted them to. No, they had to keep going, keep pushing until they got to the bottom of whatever they were after. Whether it was information or someone else’s happiness, they always pushed until they felt as though they were finally done.

“Yeah, you are definitely Danny’s kid,” Steve muttered under his breath as he picked himself up from the floor and began to stretch out all his aching muscles. He looked at Grace for another moment before scratching at his stubbly cheek for a moment. They had finally allowed him to shave, but he swore it was growing back faster than it usually did.

A clearing of the throat and another exasperated look from Grace had caused the man to sigh before he finally decided to give her an answer. “Your dad was my lawyer, Grace. I was convicted of killing twelve people and imprisoned for close to five years because of it.”

“Not a good enough reason. Look at that Charles guy. He was engaged while in prison,” Grace said, knowing more about criminals than Danny was comfortable with.

“I have severe OCD and I was dishonorably discharged from the Navy.”

“My OCD had my parents commit me to the same hospital you’re in and they love me no less than before.”

“You aren’t going to let me out of this one. Are you?” Steve asked, staring dead at the little girl who simply grinned in response. It was definitely a shit-eating grin and it was the same one that Danny sported from time to time when he got his way with an argument between Steve and him.

They stood there for a few minutes after that, silently bickering over Steve’s lack of telling Danny his feelings for him and Grace’s inability to just let something like said feelings go. It was actually that silence that had caused the blonde to finally come out of hiding and enter his daughter’s room where the two stood. It was as he cleared his throat that they both jumped slightly and looked at him as though they were just caught picking locks to some secret safe.

The analogy, while he was the only one whose mind it passed through, had caused Danny to smile a little. In a way it really was as though they were picking a lock. Though both of them were unaware, they were managing to pick the lock the lawyer had placed on himself to keep from getting hurt as he had been when he and Rachel divorced. While Grace was already his whole world, her meddling and Steve simply being the neanderthal he was seemed to do the trick despite all of Danny’s hard work.

“Your mom said that Step-Stan is going to spend the night with you,” he informed his daughter.

“Case in the morning?” They both asked, knowing that Danny could only be pulled away from Grace for very few reasons. They knew that he wasn’t going to leave at that very second, but he wasn’t going to be spending the night either.

“Actually, I have court. Nothing big, it’s a civil suit rather than a state trial,” Danny shrugged, glancing at Steve and then looking away so he could smile at the little girl who had just plopped onto the bed.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Steve. He saw the quick glance and how Danny had just as quickly looked away. At first he wondered if he had done something wrong, but he was pretty sure that if he did then the lawyer wouldn’t bite his tongue about it. In fact, he knew for a fact that Danny didn’t bite his tongue about anything when it came to things between the two of them. Even when he had discovered the hate mail that the blonde was trying to hide, they talked about it openly rather than tongue biting.

Just thinking about the hate mail made the former SEAL massage his hand gingerly. It had been cramping up off and on since he had begun to write the replies to each letter that he could. He didn’t care if the people wrote back, but he just hoped that they read his letters and knew just how sorry he really was. Each family of each victim, all were hurt because of him and he wanted to ease their pain. He wanted to let them know that he regretted everything. If they didn’t forgive him then he would understand. He told them that he would understand and that not a day went by when he didn’t feel horrible for what he had done.

“Steve? Steve, stop it,” came Danny’s voice as he snapped his fingers in front of the ex SEAL several times to get him out of his trance. The blonde would have shaken the other from his thoughts as he had done before, but neither of them wanted a fight to break out with Grace just a couple of feet away.

The finger snapping method took slightly longer, but Steve blinked a few times before settling himself back into the present. He had to talk to Malia about how his mind wandered off the way it did. Granted, he wasn’t wandering around when it happened or even some brainless zombie, but his thoughts did often take him away staring with a fleeting thought.

“You okay?” The blonde asked to which the other nodded his head slightly. He could tell that Danny didn’t believe that he was really alright, at least not right away, but the issue wasn’t pushed any further. Again, it was a silent yet mutual agreement that they’d keep certain things away from Grace despite her own maturity.

“You sure, Uncle Steve?”

“Yeah, Gracie, I’m fine. I actually just remembered that Kono wanted my help convincing her cousin to go to something with her,” he lied, maneuvering around the lawyer while his eyes stayed on Grace. He didn’t enjoy lying to her, but he couldn’t stay in the same room as them. He enjoyed the company of both of them, but when he began to dwell on his past he knew it was better to do it alone. It was his burden to bare and he didn’t want to bother anyone else with it. The whole sharing feelings and whatnot just wasn’t in his genetic makeup the way it was in Danny’s.

While Grace allowed him to leave, Danny was gearing up for a complaint before he saw the tightness in Steve’s shoulders as the other had turned to leave the room. Whatever it was, it was clear to the blonde that the other had enough on his plate without a complaint being thrown his way and for what was probably the first time, Danny bit his lip and kept his mouth shut.

“See you later,” they heard Steve say before he closed the for behind him as he left the room.


	23. What Can Be Said

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a beating in his heart. It went faster than the pattern of two. It went faster than when he was under enemy fire in some undisclosed location. He didn’t break a sweat, but his pupils dilated while his heart continued to beat wildly inside his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of jeez! I'm so sorry for the long wait. Here is the lovely chapter full of some quality time.

There was a beating in his heart. It went faster than the pattern of two. It went faster than when he was under enemy fire in some undisclosed location. He didn’t break a sweat, but his pupils dilated while his heart continued to beat wildly inside his chest. 

“Did you listen to a word I just said?”

Steve snapped out of whatever trance he was in and looked at Danny. He couldn’t look him in the eye. After Grace had so nicely pointed out that he indeed liked the blonde lawyer, he hadn’t been able to look him in the eye without his heart racing. It was natural, but Steve hated it. He hated feeling like a teenager because it made him think about his past, about his mother. It didn’t matter what it was that made him feel like a teenager, it always looped him back around to his mother’s death.

“Steve,” Danny said, snapping his fingers in front of the other’s face to get him to focus.

They were sitting in the visiting area in the dead of night with coffees in their hands. The doctor’s, mostly Malia, had voiced their opinions about both of them being there so late, but they had stayed anyway. It had become a constant for them to bend and break the rules. They always did it within reasonable bounds, but they did it nonetheless.

“I’m listening,” Steve said, bringing his coffee up to his lips and taking a sip of it. The liquid felt lukewarm against his tongue which meant that he had spaced out for quite a while. He had made the mistake of looking Danny in the eye when the conversation first started and he had missed most if not all of it.

_At least this gives a good reason to see him blow his lid._

It was a bad thing, almost like an addiction. If there was one thing that got Steve’s blood pumping more than staring into those ocean blue eyes, it was hearing the lawyer get riled up. It was bad, probably even unhealthy. For someone to enjoy winding someone up so much just to watch them pop must have been some type of mental problem that needed to be looked at.

_I’ll think about talking to Malia about that…_

“How is it that you didn’t hear a word I said?” Danny asked, one hand moving around while the other held his coffee carefully, “where the hell did your mind wander to, huh? What is going on in that head of yours? You better not be thinking of some weird shit.”

“Weird shit?” Steve asked with a raised brow. Danny wasn’t exactly getting wound up, but he was definitely getting something good out of the conversation that he was currently paying attention to.

“Yeah, like RPGs, grenades, throwing people out of windows. Y’know, whatever you army guys do.”

“I was Navy, Danny,” Steve reminded the other though it had become obvious over the years that the blonde mistook which branch of the military that Steve was apart of just to get some type of reaction.

“Either way I don’t need you thinking about going all Rambo when when I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”

“I said that I was listening, didn’t I?”

Danny raised his brows and waved a hand in Steve’s direction, “Please, enlighten me on what I was just saying to you. I would love to hear it along with your reply.”

Shit. He should have known that Danny was going to pull a move like that. It was just like the blonde to ask him what they were just discussing and even though he should have seen it coming, he was still blindsided. However, it didn’t stop Steve from leaning back in the seat slightly an giving the other a smug grin. 

“You wanted to know if I knew who had a santa suit for you to wear this Christmas,” Steve said with such confidence that it had knocked Danny off kilter. It wasn’t what the blonde had been saying, but it was a very good question in which he really did need an answer to.

“Do you?” Danny asked, deciding to put the one sided conversation from earlier onto the back burner since Steve had reminded him of something even more appointment.

The lawyer couldn’t even believe that he had forgotten about his time honored tradition of dressing up as santa for his monkey every Christmas. Without fail, he had always been ahead of the game even if he didn’t get the chance to spend the whole of Christmas or even Christmas Eve with his little girl. This year…well, he wasn’t sure how he had allowed himself to forget about trying to hunt down a santa outfit. It didn’t matter that so many things had happened in the last few months. He didn’t find any of them to be a good excuse as to why he hadn’t done as he always did and found himself a costume in advance.

“Kamekona has a cousin that has connections.”

“Shamu’s got a cousin with connections? Do you not realize how illegal you just made that sound?”

Steve shrugged his shoulder in response before taking another sip of his lukewarm coffee. He hated the taste of it. It wasn’t hot, nor was it cold. The dark colored liquid that sloshed around in the styrofoam cup was just there, its temperature the only evidence that they had both been sitting there for quite some time. Even though he hated the taste, Steve couldn’t deny that he enjoyed the passing time. It wasn’t often that he could just sit with someone and talk. It didn’t matter what the subject was because it felt so much like simple civilization between Danny and himself. It all felt so natural.

“Does it matter? The guy has connections on santa suits. Kono was asking him about something like that about a week ago,” he told Danny with a slight shrug.

“I thought Kono and them didn’t do the whole santa and Christmas thing.”

“What gave you that idea?” Steve asked, raising his brows slightly.

“You, my friend, have not been my only client that has ended up here. There was a woman who had a thing for impersonating people in power who got sent here. I think she might still be a patient now that I think about it,” Danny said, looking off to the side as he tried to think about his former client who had been sent to Kahi Mohana as part of her parole. She was only supposed to stay there for a few months, but that had been two years ago. He had heard she was still a patient, but the last time he had gotten an update was near halloween those two years prior.

"What does she have to do with this conversation? I thought we were talking about you believing that the workers here didn't do Christmas."

Danny rolled his eyes slightly at Steve and took a sip from his own cup of lukewarm coffee. It tasted like pure crap to the lawyer and that was saying something since he had experienced the joys of precinct coffee. Any coffee that came out of a police station just wasn't healthy for any living being. 

"My client was from the mainland like me," the blonde said as he set the cup down and pushed it aside. If he took another sip he was pretty sure he was going to regret the hell out of it. "We are both native mainland babies where you, my great big Neanderthal, are Hawaii born."

"Did you just call me a great big Neanderthal?"

"Seriously? That's what you take from what I just told you?"

While the former SEAL simply shrugged his shoulders, Danny let out a sigh and dropped his head slightly. Steve had picked up on a lot of the conversation he had with the other. There was no possible way that he couldn't. The downside, however, was that he was beginning to wonder if Danny's other client was, in any way, the woman who had visited him a few weeks earlier. 

“What was her name?”

“Whose?”

“Your previous client, the one who liked to impersonate people. What was her name?” Steve asked just as one of the orderlies came by to tell them that they had to leave the first floor. It meant that Danny had to leave the hospital and Steve had to go up to his room, but they knew that they were talking on borrowed time.

As they stood from the table, Danny took both of their styrofoam cups and threw them away. He knew that Steve wanted to know who the client was, but that was definitely breaking laws that he couldn’t allow himself to break. He pushed limits with a lot of things he did with Steve and Steve did the same in return. 

“You can’t tell me, can you?” The former SEAL asked as he looked at his friend. He wasn't hurt by the idea of Danny keeping a name away from him. He knew that the blonde was a lawyer and he knew that the guy had been doing things that cost a lot of favors and pulled strings. It was then that he knew he had probably put Danny through more than a lot of his clients ever had.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Keep an eye on my little girl, got it?” Danny said, pointing a finger at Steve before he left the visiting center and left the dark haired man with the orderly.

“Got it,” Steve mumbled as he watched the other leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a final note, who thinks I should up the ante and give these two something steamy in the future? Any hands? Let me know in the comments and we'll see what we can make happen.


	24. Toolbox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Apparently he got disbarred for bribing judges to let his clients off the hook.”
> 
> “What?!” The blonde heard some young sounding guy exclaim from the end of the line at the coffee shop, “Chin Ho Kelly would never have done that.”
> 
> “How do you know? You were like, a teenager when it happened.”
> 
> “So what? How do you even know it’s true?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeezbus! This took me forever and I am super sorry for that guys! I just started going back to college and I'm doing some volunteer stuff so I'm not on the ball the way I was in the beginning. Please forgive me, you beautiful cinnamon rolls! I will try to post at least two more chapters before the New Year.

Danny sat at the round table in the shop when he first heard Chin’s name that week. Things had slowed down, the world seemed to be tilting back in place, but it wouldn’t last long. Danny knew from experience that the only thing that lasted any real length of time was his knee pain and his job. Other than that he knew that all things ended up going sideways.

“Apparently he got disbarred for bribing judges to let his clients off the hook.”

“What?!” The blonde heard some young sounding guy exclaim from the end of the line at the coffee shop, “Chin Ho Kelly would never have done that.”

“How do you know? You were like, a teenager when it happened.”

“So what? How do you even know it’s true?”

The blonde lawyer heard the argument and couldn’t help himself from shaking his head lightly. It had taken everything in his power to not blow a fuse and he was doing a great job until the guy not defending Chin had said that he was a loser lawyer.

Pushing his seat back, Danny stood up and marched right over to the two law school students that looked like two asses trying to make daddy proud. It sickened him to see people practicing law when they didn’t even have a drive or passion for it. He could tell in the way that they were bickering that they weren’t even cut out for being lawyers. Hell, if Meka were still alive he’d have knocked their heads together.

“Look it here, you do not. I repeat DO NOT talk about Chin Ho Kelly like he won’t ever hear about what you’re saying,” he told the idiot who was talking crap about Chin, “this island is small, this whole state is small. This pineapple invested hell-hole hears everything and you my friend, are not even trying to be subtle with what you are saying about my dear friend. Do you get that?”

There was a small nod, but Danny kept going. It didn’t take him long to earn the attention of the whole establishment as he shouted and ranted at the two young men that were obviously taller than him. He wasn’t afraid of their height because he knew that all five foot five Jersey attitude was bigger and badder than they ever hoped to be. By the time he was done chewing them out, he knew that his coffee had gotten lukewarm and that just pissed him off a little more.

“Go. Get your little frappe whatever you call it and get the hell out of here before I tear you a new one,” he threatened, pointing his finger at the cash register and watching them slink off in a way that reminded him of Grace after he reprimanded her over something she had done.

“That was one hell of a speech. Ever thought about just becoming president?”

The sudden voice caused Danny to whip his head around and see Chin standing behind him with Kono. Both cousins were staring at him with amused looks on their faces. Had his rant been that funny? Was there something that the blonde had missed?

“Definitely all Jersey fire,” Kono said with a nod as she nudged Chin with her elbow.

“How long were you standing there?” Danny asked, placing his hands on his hips.  
“Not long,” the security guard had said, “just since the bit about me being a better lawyer than even their grandparents had hoped to accomplish.”

“What the hell? You were here for more than half my fucking rant and you didn’t even bother to pipe up?” Danny asked, his arms flailing like usual.

“It was too good of a show to pass up, brah. How were we to interrupt?” Kong grinned.

Danny didn’t even bother to respond. He had wanted to. God knows he had a lot to say about everything. It was his specialty to always have some sort of reply without having a filter between his brain and his mouth. Clapping his hands together once, he pointed them at Kono and then at Chin.

“You two. Are sick,” he told them, “deranged would probably be a better word. I would even be kind enough to explain it all, but I have a job I have to get to and then a daughter to go see.”

Chin nodded his head at the blonde and both cousins watched him walk past them before Kono decided to speak up again.

“Steve’s been keeping her company. Rachel said it was alright,” she informed the lawyer who gave a wave of acknowledgment before leaving the coffee shop and walking towards his car. He didn't mind that Steve was keeping Grace company. In fact, he was grateful for it. The two of them had grown close and they seemed to be helping each other get better at handling their obsessive compulsion.

Danny knew that there was no cure for OCD, but he really did believe that Stece and Grace were doing the best they could. Even Malia had commented on the improvement that she had seen. Sure, they both had their outbursts and breakdowns, but they weren’t as bad as before. Grace’s pattern stuck at four while Steve’s stuck at two. It had grown simpler. It was something that could be managed and wasn’t as time consuming for either of them.

As the blonde unlocked the door of his Camaro and got inside, he used his free hand to pull out his phone and dial the number to call Mary. It had been a while since he had last gotten in touch with her and if memory had served him correctly, she was still on probation for the DUI charge that he handled for her a month or so before.

“How fast can you get over to the house?” Mary asked almost as quickly as she had answered the call.

The question had caught Danny off guard. He hadn’t expected to be asked how fast he could get to the McGarrett family home and he hadn't expected for Mary to ask him in such a rush. Had something happened? Did she need his help getting a story straight? The blonde hoped to god she didn’t expect his help to hide a body. He didn’t care if he was the family lawyer, he would have sooner tossed Steve into a shark tank.

“What did you do this time?” He asked, closing the car door and starting the car, “if you killed someone I swear to god I will not help you hide the body.”

“Do you seriously think I’m capable of killing someone? I’m not Super SEAL,” Mary said incredulously. Sure, she wasn’t dainty in the least, but the bleach blonde woman wasn't capable of killing anyone. The most she ever did was break some guy’s jaw.

“Then what do you need me to come to the house for, huh? You do realize that I have other clients other than your family, right?”

“Danny…”

The tone that Mary’s voice had taken had caused Danny to pause. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew that the last time he had heard Mary sound like that was before he first met Steve. It didn’t feel as though it’s been almost five years since they first met.

“I’ll be over there soon. Don’t go anywhere,” he told the bleach blonde woman as he pulled away from the curb and drove down the street. Once he got an okay from the other, he hung up the phone and tossed it aside.

*****

He stared at the red box. That was all that he could do. There was nothing else that Danny could even think about doing.

“What am I going to do with this, Danny? What can I do?” Mary asked, sounding as if she had reached the end of her rope.

Turning his head to look at the other, the lawyer turned the rest of his body to face Mary.

“You need to take it easy? Can you do that? Can you just relax for a moment?” He asked her, his hands moving on their own though not quite as angrily as usual.

“But?”

“We don’t even know what any of this means? It is a box filled with photos and other things that don’t look like they make much sense,” Danny continued before sliding his hair back and taking a deep breath. He had seen something that looked like a clue to something in the toolbox of mystery, but he had run out of favors with the police department. 

Mary stared at him with a look on her face that said that she wanted to argue. They both were very good at arguing so it would take their mind off the mysteries that surrounded the contents of the box left behind by Steve and Mary’s late father. However, they both knew that it wasn’t something that could be avoided. In fact, they both wanted answers and they knew that Steve would want in on whatever the hell was going on. For someone that was locked away in prison and then transferred to a mental hospital, the former Navy SEAL sure as hell had expansive knowledge at what was going on outside of the four walls he saw from day to day.

_I don’t even know where to go with this._ Danny thought to himself as he watched the woman walk away from him and back into the main part of the house while he stayed in the garage with the toolbox and beat up car that sat unmoving underneath a ratted tarp.

He knew that his choices were limited. He didn’t have many options and there weren’t a whole lot of people that he even trusted. With everything that had been going on with Noshimura, Judge Jameson, and Wo Fat, Danny wasn’t even sure who he could really trust. It didn’t even make things better that he didn’t have Mika to help him out. The only one he really had that could help him was—

Oh…

He was so stupid.

_Elliot would call me a damn imbecile right about now._

Closing his eyes for a moment, Danny pulled out his phone and dialed a number of someone who could help him out without asking more questions than need be. It was someone that he trusted and someone who was already in on what was going on with Judge Jameson and her possible corruption.

After three rings, the line picked up and the blonde lawyer could hear faint talking before everything went silent for a second.

“Danny?” The voice on the other end asked.

“Hey, Stan…I need a favor.”


	25. Trust Is A Game We Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Steve-"
> 
> "Not now Danny," Steve said in a raspy voice as he pushed himself closer before flipping them. Seeing he lawyer on his back as entertaining to say the least. It didn't even help that the blonde had his legs wrapped around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that I promised to write a couple of chapters, but I only managed one. Please forgive me you wonderful cinnamon rolls! You asked for something good, so I delivered as part of my apology. Have fun and keep on the lookout for more ;)

Their breathing was heavy and their chests heaving. They couldn't stop themselves from staring at each other and noting else mattered. It was just Danny and Steve. Neither of them cared about anything else as they spent that one afternoon together without a soul watching them.

"Steve-"

"Not now Danny," Steve said in a raspy voice as he pushed himself closer before flipping them. Seeing he lawyer on his back as entertaining to say the least. It didn't even help that the blonde had his legs wrapped around him. 

"We need to stop."

"No chance, D."

Taking a deep breath, Danny used what strength he had left from the previous round and flipped them over again. He could hear his phone ringing in the corner of the room, but he couldn't get away with the dark haired male using his arm to hold his head close against him. 

"Don't answer it," Steve breathed into the other's ear. Their bodies were glistening with sweat as they continued to roll around. Each of them fighting for a dominance that the other didn't want to give up. 

"It could be work," he reminded the former Navy SEAL who growled lowly near his ear and sent shivers down his spine.

What they were doing was dangerous. They could get caught at any moment, but that was half the fun. Steve was definitely a bad influence of the blonde lawyer. He could believe that he had allowed himself to get so caught up in the other. 

"Just one more round."

"Are you kidding me?" Danny panted, letting his head fall back. He didn't know when he had ended up on his back, but he figured that was to be expected considering the guy he was dealing with. 

"I'm not worried about the mess as much as usual. Let me enjoy the normalcy."

Hearing what Steve said, the Jersey native let out a small sigh of defeat. There was no way he could turn him down when he said it like that. It didn't even help his case that Steve was currently the one on top of him and straddling his lap. 

"Just one more round and then I have to leave. I'm not about to have Kono chew me out for giving you your way," Danny said before hearing the distinctive sound of someone clearing their throat. 

"Shit."

"Hey Kono," Steve said as if they weren't just caught doing the one thing they weren't supposed to be doing. 

"What have you two been told about this?" Kono asked, "what if Malia caught you guys? Or even Grace?"

"It's not that bad."

"You guys are sweating like pigs and made a mess of the room!"

"And I'll clean it," Steve said as he placed his hand on Danny's chest and pushed himself up so that he was standing rather than sitting on top of the other. 

"I don't think that's the point she's trying to make, Steven," Danny said as he took the other's hand and stood to his full height. 

Steve rolled his eyes at the two who were obviously chastising him despite the fact that Danny was just as guilty as he was. Yeah, they had been caught and there was also the possibility that he had been warned to keep his hands to himself, but how could he listen to a warning like that when he had a guy like Danny around him? It didn’t matter that Steve was in the Navy, even he had to let loose sometimes.

While Danny went to answer his phone under his clothes in the corner of the room, Kono glared at the taller male who had a loose smirk on his face.

“You guys are seriously bad, you know that?” Kono asked.

“Are you going to tell Malia?” Steve countered, using a hand to push his fingers through his hair.

While the two Hawaiian natives continued to quietly stare at each other, Danny ignored them and spoke on the phone with Stan. It had seemed as though the District Attorney had made some headway with the case number that the blonde had found in the toolbox at the McGarrett family home. 

“It smells weird in here,” Grace’s voice suddenly said, causing all three adults to look over at the teenager who stood in the doorway.

Steve grinned Danny’s daughter, while the lawyer got off the phone, and Kono covered her mouth to snicker. The two men had been busted by more than just Kono and the young native woman couldn’t stop herself from thinking that it was the funniest things ever. It was obvious that the two men weren’t as secretive as they thought.

“Danno and I were sparring. I wanted to see how good his boxing skills were,” Steve told Grace whose eyes wandered over to her father.

“My knee is fine Gracie. I went easy on Uncle Steve too, so there is nothing to worry about.”

Looking as though she only half believed her father, the young brunette grabbed Kono’s free hand and pulled her from the room, “you guys really need to shower and change into some clothes that don’t look so sweaty.”

Both men watched as Kono was dragged from the room by Grace and stayed silent for a moment before looking at each other. They weren’t really sure what to say about what had just happened in the room, but Grace was right about them needing to change. Steve couldn’t risk Malia seeing him out of his patient uniform and Danny had to change before he went to the courthouse to talk with Stan.

“Same time next week?” Steve asked as he changed right in the middle of the room. He had feelings for Danny, but that wasn’t going to stop him from changing in front of the guy and it apparently didn’t stop Danny either. They were both pressed for time either way.

“Are you kidding me? There is no next time with this. There shouldn’t have even been a this time. What if Malia did catch us, huh? Do you really think that she wouldn’t chastise us for sparring in a room that was closed for repairs?”

“You agreed to it.”

“Yes, Steven, I did agree to it, but that doesn’t mean that either of us was in the right to do it. You are a former army scout, what if something happened and you got an episode?”

“I was in the Navy, Danny,” Steve corrected the other for the umpteenth time since they had met each other almost five years ago, “and I wouldn’t have had an episode. I haven’t had an episode in three years.”

“That doesn’t mean that you’re immune to them you neanderthal!” Danny seethed, pulling on his slacks, but leaving them open to that he could tuck his shirt in properly.

Steve was silent for a moment as he finished putting on his patient uniform and stuffing his workout clothes in the duffel bag that he had Kamekona sneak in for him a few days ago. If there was one thing that the Navy had taught him, it was to always have a duffel bag handy.

“Are you watching Grace tonight?” He asked, changing the subject as Danny put on his shirt and tucked it into the open pants before buttoning everything up. He could tell that the lawyer had wanted to shower before he put on his suit, but both of them knew that they couldn’t risk getting caught. Sure, they weren’t having sex, but sparring in a room that was closed for repairs wasn’t exactly a good thing either.

Danny was happy for the change of subject even though his mind was still going off on a full blown rant about Steve having to be careful so that he didn't have an episode. The guy had gone through so much as a SEAL that the blonde wanted to protect him almost as much as his daughter. 

"Danny!"

"What?! What do you want? Am I not allowed to think to myself for a minute?" The lawyer ranted as usual, his hands moving as fast as his mouth.

He could instantly tell that he had given Steve exactly what he wanted by the smug smile on his smug face. Did the guy like seeing him riled up that much? Was he some kind of masochist? Maybe the medicine he was on was making him loopy? Could that have been it? While it made sense, Danny already knew that it wasn't true. If it was then he wouldn't have seen that smug look on his face when Steve was transferred to the hospital. The guy always liked when the Jersey native got worked up over something. 

“I’ll see you later, D. I’ll tell Grace that you love her,” the dark haired man said as he left out the room and closed the door lightly so that the other could change in peace.

*****

“Seriously?”

“Do you think I would be lying about this?”

“How do police files just go missing?! What sense does that make? That doesn’t even include how the case is a fucking homicide!” Danny shouted at the D.A who sat there with a frown on his face.

The two had met a few hours after Danny had left the mental hospital. As soon as the conversation began, the blonde knew that he was going to end up with a headache. There was no way that he couldn’t end up with a headache. Between hearing Stan act lovey dovey on the phone with Rachel and then hearing the news that Steve’s mom didn’t die in an accident AND that the files were missing, it was a miracle that the blonde hadn’t popped his lid. Stan found it particularly interesting how Danny’s hands were still attached to the lawyer when they were moving a mile a minute.

“So what are you going to tell Steve?”

That question caused everything to stop. The blonde went from furious to quiet in no time flat. He had been thinking of so much when it came to the red toolbox that Mary had found that he hadn’t thought about what were to happen if anything came from the contents inside of it.

“You didn’t think that far ahead?” Stan asked.

“I’ll tell him. He won’t like it, but I’ll tell him. He’d rather know the truth than be lied to,” he told the dark haired man, “you should have seen him when he found out about his hate mail.”

The two men suddenly fell silent and looked at the sky for a moment. When the year had first began, neither of them had expected such outcomes to surface. They weren’t naive enough to think that it was going to be a peaceful glide into yet another year, but the twists and turns that had surfaced were beyond anyone’s imagination. Noshimuri, Wo Fat, Judge Jameson? There was something that was there, but neither man could peace it together completely. They didn’t know how far it would go and that actually scared them.

“Danny,” Stan said, not looking at the blonde, “this is all going to be straightened out. They’ll be alright. You aren’t working through this alone. Judge Jameson will be removed and both Steve and Grace will be able to leave the hospital. Trust me on that.”

And Danny did trust him. He trusted Stan, but he didn’t realize just how bad things were going to get.


End file.
